


Fistful of Shovels

by Surefall



Series: Fistful of Shovels [1]
Category: Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Emotional Infidelity, M/M, Nathan Summers is a Good Bro, Nathan Summers is a Manipulative Shit, Secret Identity, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2020-08-20 08:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surefall/pseuds/Surefall
Summary: Thefivetwelve times Peter got the shovel talk fromWade's friendseveryone.





	1. Blood Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter didn't think Wade _had_ friends.

For Peter Parker, today was the perfect day. He'd been on time for his university classes, he'd nailed his midterms, and patrol had been a peaceful doddle filled with web swinging rather than crime fighting. This was the kind of day he could stop by his boyfriend's place after patrol and not feel a drop of guilt that he needed to do _something_ \-- study, track someone down, call Aunt May -- beyond indulging them both.

Wade Wilson lived on the top floor of a rundown apartment building in one of the worst areas of town. It was an open secret to the neighborhood residents that Deadpool lived here and it was generally considered to be bad for a person's health if they inquired too closely into the mercenary's activities. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, especially when the dog was unkillable. That was convenient for Spider-Man. Traveling through the area was not remarked upon and he could land on the roof and then climb down when the coast was clear. Wade left one window permanently unlocked for him. 

Climbing down the wall and lifting the well oiled window with one hand, Peter paused, suddenly uncertain if he should enter.

There was a man sitting at the only chair in the kitchen, holding the sacred Golden Girls coffee mug in hands that nearly obscured the ceramic. Even sitting down, he was huge. His shoulders were wider than the table and the zigzag blue and white sweater he was wearing only made them look even bigger. White hair, a bit of five o'clock shadow on his square jaw, and a glowing left eye. That glowing eye was how Peter was finally able to place him as Cable.

Wade fluttered like a butterfly in the kitchen, chattering cheerfully, clad in sweats and t-shirt. He rifled in the pantry, which Peter knew was mainly stocked with pancake flour, oil, empty bottles, and dust. "What do you think about pancakes?"

"It's dinner time," Cable rumbled, taking a sip of steaming hot cup of whatever.

"Heathen! Any time is pancake time!" Wade closed the pantry with a whack and opened the fridge, "Oooo, bacon!"

"How is it you only ever have breakfast fixings?" Cable mused, the mellow tone of his voice at odds with his criticism.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," Wade informed him from over the top of the refrigerator door, "all other meals are Mexican food and Chinese takeout."

"I thought you were looking a bit junked in the trunk."

"Gasp! You cad! You can't just comment on a girl's weight! This is a high performance engine maintained at peak efficiency!"

"Efficiency at farting?"

Wade laughed and as if on cue, passed some gas. 

Cable only made a face and idly waved a hand to clear the air, "I rest my case."

Still chortling, Wade let the refrigerator door swing shut, "Bacon, eggs, and pancakes. That's all I got. I'll have to pop down to the bodega for something else." He leaned a hip against the table and poked the side of Cable's head with a finger, "If you're sticking around, I'll start some grog."

Cable's entire face softened as he caught Wade's hand in his own, "Pancakes will be fine, Wade. Thank you."

The moment hung, suspended in rising steam, as their eyes caught and held and Cable's thumb traced a slow arc across the back of Wade's hand.

"You could have just said that from the beginning," Wade huffed, looking away. His gaze swept fitfully across the room and he caught sight of Peter, still standing frozen outside the window. 

He huffed again and waved his free hand for Peter to join them. "Don't just stand outside, Spidey! Come in!"

Completely unprepared for this interloper in what he usually considered an extension of his own domain, Peter slowly climbed inside and shut the window behind him. "I didn't know you planned to have company."

"Oh, yeah! Have you two been introduced?" Wade asked cheerfully and waited for no one to answer him as he plowed on, "Spider-Man, meet Nathan Summers. Nate, meet Spidey."

Peter made a face at Wade behind his mask. It was pretty rude to be blurting out real names between supers. People might want to keep it private. Well, just because Wade could be rude as hell didn't meant that Peter had to be, "Do you prefer Cable?" 

Nathan Summers slowly let go of Wade's hand, staring Peter right in the eyes before his blue and gold gaze slid over Peter and found him wanting. "Cable is my callsign. Nathan is fine outside of battle, Spider-Man."

"Does 'Cable' have anything to do with your powers?" Peter asked, just to make polite, if chilly, conversation as he hopped onto the kitchen wall. There wasn't a second kitchen chair, but Peter preferred perching anyway. Peter vaguely thought that Cable's power was guns.

"No," Nathan took a sip of the dark liquid in his cup, "I'm the bolt that pierces dimensional time, also called a 'cable'."

"That is both pretentious and stupid. Why not just call you Thread or Weaver or Spinner, then?" Wade mocked cheerfully as he lifted the kettle from the stove and waved it at Peter, "Hey, you want something to drink?"

"Swiss Miss would be nice." Peter considered that the safest potential option. Swiss Miss came in sealed baggies and thus was able to survive being left discarded on the floor and unlikely to have been left sitting in a pot for three weeks on end. 

"Those are names that you give craftsmen or spiders," Nathan took Wade's mocking in stride, with a kind of aplomb that even Peter, who had been sleeping with him for some time, still hadn't quite managed.

"Swiss Miss is terrible. Here, I'll give you the extra from Nate's," Wade rifled through the cabinet for another mostly clean mug and then grabbed a pot off the back burner and poured the contents in. He used the wooden spoon that had been sitting in the pot to fish something back out of the cup. 

"Oh no that's not ... " Peter trailed off with a sigh as Wade turned and presented the cup of still warm cream brown something to Peter with a flourish. He took the cup and promptly set it on the counter nearest him, determined not to drink it, with a muttered, "Thanks."

Satisfied he'd been served, Wade ignored him entirely for the sake of continuing the conversation with Nathan, " ... but do the spiders taste like crab, Nate?"

"Fuck you," Nathan said with such placid malice that Wade laughed and Peter just felt confused.

Nathan seemed to sense Peter's confusion even without seeing his face because he provided clarifying detail, "Wade and I ate a giant spider once. We were out of supplies."

"They were just like really big crab legs once you got past all the hair," Wade added happily.

"They were disgusting," Nathan said flatly, delicately wrinkling his nose at the memory.

"Just because he'll eat them doesn't mean he likes them," Wade chattered on, "Nate doesn't like to eat anything from phylum arthropoda. I, however, loooove the taste of spider." He waggled his eyebrows at Peter, and when that failed to generate an immediate response, he made kissy lips to highlight his innuendo.

"So! Nathan! What brings you here?" Peter said loudly, in an effort to direct the conversation away from the eating of spiders. If Peter wasn't mistaken, Cable was one of the X-Men. There was no reason for him to be at Deadpool's place unless the X-Men needed another regenerating stabby person.

Nathan glanced pointedly at Peter's languishing cup as he took a long slow sip of his own with unnecessarily overt relish. Now knowing where it had come from, Peter could hardly believe that he taken the risk of drinking it at all. "Just visiting. It's been a while since I've had the time to spend an evening with Wade."

"It's been _forever_," Wade complained, "I thought I was going to grow old and not die with how long it was taking you!"

Nathan hummed without responding to Wade's babbling, fixing Peter in place with his blue and gold gaze, "Why are _you_ here, Spider-Man?"

"I -- "

"He's my boyfriend," Wade said casually, "He comes over when he wants to fuck."

"Oh, is that all?" Nathan said mildly.

Peter would also like to melt into the wall and die of embarrassment. It wasn't that he was ashamed of being Wade's boyfried, per se, but just bursting out with it so crudely to a near complete stranger was just too much. "Thanks a lot, Wade. Just blurt it out to everyone!" 

"Pretty mu -- Wha? Nate isn't just anyone, Spidey," Wade tsked, "He's my best friend. We're like this." He held up his hand and crossed the first two fingers, "Brothers from a different mother, the bromanciest of bros to ever bro, my blood is his blood, our hearts beat as one, our names have been on the title of a comic book series together," As the litany continued, Wade threw himself dramatically across the kitchen table, spreading his arms to encompass the whole white and blue clad mountain of Nathan Summers. "We're so tight we make your ass seem loose."

Nathan laughed, an open bright sound that eased the stiffness of his broad shoulders and smoothed the grim lines of his face. Wade rolled onto his side, propping his head up on an elbow and beaming happily at Nathan. Nathan smiled back, "As close as all that?"

That smile rubbed Peter the wrong way and made him feel guilty in the same moment because it was horrible to be annoyed by someone else's happiness. 

"You bet _your_ tight -- "

The phone rang.

"Is that your phone?" Peter asked, glad for the distraction.

Wade immediately straightened and pushed away from the table. He snatched the vibrating and singing phone from the counter and checked it, confused. "Huh. Guess it's a job." 

Wade promptly walked out of the kitchen, crossed the living room in long strides and disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door with a click. Only then did the demanding jangle of the phone finally cease.

Peter dropped off the wall, grabbed his ignored cup of brown whatever and poured it down the sink. If Wade asked, he would just say he had drunk it.

Nathan watched with a cold blue eye, "Alone at last."

Peter set the cup down and glanced at Nathan, only for the world to suddenly twist as he was yanked into the air along with every unsecured item in the apartment. Peter tried to twist in the air to find the ground again and failed. Only Nathan and the furniture he was using continued to obey the laws of gravity. Nathan didn't look at all surprised that Peter was suddenly floating. Peter narrowed his eyes, "You're doing this."

"An astute observation," Nathan said mildly, "I believe we should talk." He set his cup down. Peter's spider sense tingled, sharp spikes of warning stabbing into his awareness, "about your affair with Wade."

"That isn't any of your business," Peter started, wary.

"Wade is my friend. My very best friend and I care deeply about his happiness," Nathan continued, inexorable as thunder, "But beyond friendship, he's my _blood brother_. He's as close to me as family. His happiness is always going to be my business. So if you _ever_ hurt him, I will -- "

"Kill me? Please. You're never going to do that." 

" -- break every bone in your body and drop you in a public hospital, where you can spend the next several weeks in recovery, reliant on the benevolence of strangers while the city you value so much goes 'unprotected'." Nathan air quoted the last part.

Peter drew in a sudden shocked breath.

"I hope that we understand each other."

Before Peter could formulate a reply, he was abruptly and not so gently set on his feet as everything that had been floating remembered that gravity worked and dropped sharply and silently back down. 

Wade walked in not one second later, giving his phone an annoyed look before he tossed it on the table, oblivious to the drama that had unfolded in his absence, "I do not understand women."

Nathan smiled, serene and smug, as he picked up his cup to take a long sip, "Who was it?"

"Neena." Nathan's eyebrow rose in a silent question and Wade huffed, "She kept asking me these weird questions about ... candles? Is this some kind of code? Do we need to rescue her from draculas? I feel like draculas are imminent."

Nathan's phone rang and it promptly popped out of the pocket of his coat and floated over to him, hovering in front of his eyes as he checked the number and answered, "Hello?"

Wade narrowed his eyes at the phone and then turned the same suspicious gaze on Nathan, who innocently widened his own eyes. "Of course, I'll be right there."

Wade jabbed two fingers at his own eyes and then flipped them around to thrust them in Nathan's direction, a silent 'I have my eyes on you'.

"Goodbye," Nathan's phone clicked off and floated back into his jacket pocket. Nathan sighed, draining his cup before setting it down and pushing up from the table. "I have to go. Do you still want to do movie night next week?"

"Mario Kart Night, you mean," Wade corrected with a pout, an actual pout, with outthrust lip and everything.

"Haven't we ruined our friendship enough?" Nathan asked gravely as the jacket floated to him and he slipped it on.

"Well, if you're going to be a weeny about it ... " Wade smirked and then huffed as Nathan grabbed him in a hug, "Why do you always come back from the future with all these feelings? Ours is a manly friendship without all this soppy girl shit." For all his complaints, Wade hugged Nathan back and grinned up at the taller man, punching his lightly in the shoulder. "Don't get killed out there, ya dumb putz."

"Of course not," Nathan rolled his eyes, gripping Wade tight before he released him, briefly cupping the back of his neck in a broad hand, "Take care of yourself, Wade." He nodded to Peter. "Spider-Man."

Then he was gone, slipping out the front door, the heavy tread of his boots fading as he descended the stairwell.

Peter waited until Nathan couldn't hear them before he turned to Wade, "What in the fuck."

"Damn, Spidey, do you kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?" Wade grinned widely before his lips pursed into an exaggerated kissy lips expression. "Are you gonna kiss your boyfriend with that mouth? 'Cause I'm standing right here, completely unkissed."

It brought a smile to Peter's lips as he shook his head, rolling his shoulders playfully, "If I must."

He really did have better things to than to worry about Cable, things like Wade. Peter caught Wade's head in his hands when Wade leaned down, tilting his head up to meet him. Wade hooked his fingers under Peter's mask and pulled it up only high enough for their lips to touch, brushing together and parting as their tongues tangled together in a brief, hungry kiss. 

"You don't taste like chocolate," Wade said woefully, betrayal bleeding into his voice as he pulled back to deliver the full force of his disappointment with his most pathetic puppy eyes.

"Ummmm ... " Peter cast about quickly for an excuse, "Cable drank it."

"Rude!"

"I know, right!?" Peter agreed heartily before swiftly changing the subject, "Why'd you tell him about us? It was supposed to be a secret."

"C'mon, Spidey, Nate's my best friend," Wade waved a hand in the air as if brushing off such heinous secret breaking accusations, "I never keep secrets from Nate unless it's for his own good or unless I'm going to pull a prank on him or if it's about hard stuff like feelings which is way girly and we can never talk about because we're manly men or unless Neena asked me to because _she_ was going to mess with him."

Peter sighed. It was probably alright. It's not like Cable knew Peter's secret identity or anything. 

"Besides, he's a telepath, so it's impossible to throw him a surprise party or keep any kind of secret that someone else knows anyways." 

"What?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, before I read the comics, I read a lot of Spideypool fanfiction and thought nothing of it. However, after I read the comics, I started wondering why Wade was the only one getting the shovel talks ... but Peter never did. This fic exists solely to rectify that, starting with the person I always wanted to give Peter the shovel talk: Cable.
> 
> Nathan Summers is a Good Bro is a tag that should definitely exist!
> 
> Wade and Nathan have canonically shared bodies to the point where future technology could not tell them apart. Blood brothers is a relationship they can easily claim.


	2. Back Alley Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing good comes of meeting people in alleys.

Peter Parker slowed down as he reached the cross street, taking a moment to catch his breath, straighten his clothes, and check his camera. A robbery down on 5th had almost made him late to his appointment and he didn't want to make it obvious he had been running to make the meeting. Contract photography jobs with anyone except the Daily Bugle were few and far between and Peter had something of a reputation for being unreliable. Weddings and events needed schedule dedication. 

After a quick glance in a nearby window, Peter was satisfied that he wasn't red faced and puffing anymore. Taking a deep breath, he turned the corner and trotted along the street, looking for the two men who were his appointment.

There, by the alley entrance, was the man with the red scarf and the man with the green scarf, matching the descriptions he was provided for Mr. Hammer and Mr. Hardin. Hammer had his hands stuffed in his jacket pocket and was thin and weedy under his jacket, with stubble and a pair of round glasses on his nose, looking boredly down the street. Hardin was taller than Hammer and better built, with sandy hair and a clean shaven face, but he hunched and moved from foot to foot in cold or nervousness. 

Peter waved to get their attention as he approached, "Hi! Mr. Hammer? Mr. Hardin? I'm Peter Parker. I'm sorry to keep you waiting." He offered his hand for shaking.

They exchanged perfunctory hand shakes and Hammer shoved his glasses up his nose with a finger, "No problem, but we want to get right to it, if that's okay?"

"Sure, sure," Peter nodded, holding up his still cased camera, "Just point me at it."

Hardin pointed down the alley, gesturing for Peter to precede them, "T-this way. It runs straight to our studio."

Peter went exactly where Hardin had pointed with no concern whatsoever, "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but why do you even need a photographer?"

"Our talents lie elsewhere," Hammer replied, following him in. 

They passed out of view of the street and Peter stopped when he realized that the alley was a dead end. Confused, he turned around and froze when he saw Hardin pointing a gun at him. Peter took a cautious step back to open up some reaction time and wondered why his spider sense hadn't gone off.

"Sorry about the false pretenses," Hammer said, hands in his pockets, still looking as bored as he had before, "but we need you to take a message."

"Excuse me?" Peter looked between the two, still getting no spider sense response at all.

Hardin held the gun steadily, as if he wasn't threatening Peter with it. "You're the photographer who takes pictures of Spider-Man, right?"

"Of course he is," Hammer rolled his eyes behind his glasses.

Peter nodded slowly, understanding that this was about Spider-Man, which was useful since he was Spider-Man, "Sure, but I'm just the schmuck with the camera. He's the one who calls the shots."

"You're just taking the message to him," Hammer said, "we're not interested in _you_."

Peter held his hands up, both to indicate he didn't want to be shot and to show his harmlessness. "Look, I don't call him. He calls me."

"Don't play games with me," Hammer was casual, but the malice underneath startled Peter. Hammer's boredom up to this point and his own lack of spider sense had lured him into something of a false sense of security. "None of your phones gets any calls from an untraceable source."

A chill crept down Peter's spine. Hammer and Hardin, or the people in charge of them, had been spying on Peter and Peter hadn't even noticed.

"You shouldn't lie to people, Mr. Parker," Hardin chided gently. Hammer shot Hardin an incredulous look and shook his head in silent disbelief.

"H-hey!" Peter thought fast, "Look! He's Spider-Man, okay? He just drops off a roof or knocks on my window. I've even gotten bike messages! He really doesn't like to be tracked."

The atmosphere grew chillier. Hammer narrowed his eyes and Hardin's grip on the gun tightened. The slightest tremor of spider tingles made his hairs stand up. 

Hammer finally nodded in acceptance of this explanation, "Then the next time he knocks on your window," his tone was laced with a heavy dose of innuendo, "you tell him this: -- "

" -- Break Deadpool's heart and you'll regret it," Hardin completed coldly.

Peter's brain screamed to a halt in shock and his mouth dropped open, "W-what?"

Hammer rolled his shoulders in a shrug, "He could take us in a fight, of course, but we're not going to fight him if he fucks this up with Wade."

"We're just going to find out his secret identity and tell everyone we know," Hardin nodded and then lowered his voice a little as if the next part were a secret, "and we know a lot of people who don't like Spider-Man."

"I'm looking forward to the challenge," Hammer took his hands out of his pockets to stretch them over his head, "I haven't tried to nail him down because I didn't care ... but _now_ I care that he's messing with my friend's crazy little black heart."

"Mr. Wilson doesn't love wisely," Hardin nodded with sage and open affection, "We have to look out for him."

Peter swallowed, "Whoa, okay, I'll tell him what you said." He managed to sound like an overwhelmed Peter Parker rather than a completely freaked out Spider-Man who had just been threatened with complete destruction by two average, harmless seeming men.

"Good!" Hardin said, flicking the safety back on the gun and tucking it away.

"C'mon, Bob, all this outdoors crap is getting to me," Hammer gave a theatrical shudder as he turned away and walked down the alley.

Hardin ran to catch up with Hammer to tell him earnestly. "You really need to go outside more, Mr. Hammer. Sunlight is good for you!"

"Shut up, Bob!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bob Agent of Hydra has no last name in the comics. I have given him the last name of Hardin. Mr. Hammer is Jack Hammer, also known as Weasel.


	3. Phone Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter survives the telephone, but barely survives Mario Kart Night.

Peter picked up the phone on the second ring, "Hello?"

"Is this Spider-Man?" a woman asked, grouchy and no-nonsense.

Peter choked, coughed, and barely had the piece of mind to say, "You have the wrong num -- "

"I don't think I do," the woman said tartly, "you're the one stepping out with Wade."

_Shit._

"Look lady," Peter breathed deeply and kept obfuscating, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know any Wade and I'm going to hang up -- "

"Hold your red and blue butt, boy," the woman overrode him once again, "I understand that you're free as a bird right now, but you best watch yourself, before you get chained to someone's bed post." 

"What the hell, lady!?" 

"Wade ain't the straightest ruler in the shed, if you get my drift. Twisted like a old branch, he is," the woman sounded almost fond as she coughed and took a deep inhaling breath. Cigarette smoker, maybe? "He's kept what he cares about right and tight and bolted down."

"Uhhh," How did he even respond to that? That was insane! Was she accusing Wade of ... imprisonment? Kidnapping? It's not like he thought of Wade as an upstanding moral light. He was a contract killer, for gods sake, but jeez!

Her voice sharpened, "So I won't be having you undoing all my hard work. He's finally got away from all that, become productive with that Summers boy."

_Oh my god._ Was this Wade's _mom_? He thought Wade didn't have any family! "Mrs. Wilson -- "

The woman cackled, "Mrs. Wilson he says! I like that! Call me that if you want," Her laugh died away into another cough. "But if you hurt him or you betray him or -- god forbid -- you _use him_ ... I'll come for you. I've got a lot of favors left to cash in, boy, and I'll cash them all to crush you. Hell, if I say I'm willing to _sell you_ after I'm done with you, they might do it for free."

This woman was _crazy_. "Yes, ma'am," Peter said tightly, just wanting her off the phone _right now_.

"That's a good lad. Bye now." She hung up.

* * *

Peter climbed through Wade's apartment window, ready to give him the third degree. Random strangers independently tracking him down was one thing. His own villains had used the 'grab Peter Parker' trick to find Spider-Man. It was the risk he took selling his own pictures ... but this! Telephone calls! 

Two heads were poking up from behind the couch, one white haired and the other bald and scarred. Wade's head was propped on Nathan's massive shoulder. The television was on, filling the apartment with a familiar and cheerful racing soundtrack. Luigi fell off the rainbow road. 

_Right_, Peter remembered, _Mario Kart Night_. Peter's righteous indignation faltered into a trudge. He could hardly lay into Wade in front of company, especially _this_ company. This was absolutely none of Cable's business. He sighed and walked past the couch on the way to the kitchen. At least he could still raid Wade's beer. Those were the benefits of having a boyfriend that didn't know he wasn't twenty-one. 

Peter liberated a can from the denuded six pack on the counter and cracked it open. "Who's -- "

"Shhh," Nathan shushed him.

" -- winning?" Peter finished in an automatic whisper as he finally took in the view from the kitchen.

Wade was fast asleep, slumped against Nathan's side, the controller having fallen from loose fingers into his lap. Nathan played alone, driving Luigi while Yellow Peach sat dinking around at the starting line. 

[I was, of course], the words were entirely inside his head, dropping into his mind like stones. Telepathy felt weird, but wasn't a total surprise. Wade had been happy to brag about Nathan's powers as if they were his own when Peter had asked about them, right before he started to complain about all the ways Nathan had used them against him over the course of their friendship. Peter only extricated himself from that discussion by suggesting they order Mexican food for dinner. 

[You fell off the road], Peter thought back as clearly as he could, [And get out of my head.] 

"Hmmm," Nathan grunted, but he seemed to have retreated. Not that Peter could actually tell since he wasn't a telepath.

They lapsed into mutual silence. Nathan continued playing without Wade, driving Luigi haphazardly around the Rainbow Road into doom. Peter finished off his beer and sighed quietly, his indignation having drained away in the glow of the game, the cheerful music, and Wade's peaceful face. He couldn't remember ever seeing Wade so still and quiet, his animated features smoothed of emotion.

When Peter thought about it, standing there watching Nathan play the worst game of Mario Kart that Peter had ever seem, he supposed that it was unreasonable to expect Wade to _not_ tell his mom about them. So what if she had snooped around? He didn't think _his_ Aunt May would do that ... but she might be tempted if his phone was just lying around when he came to visit. 

Now that the initial anger had faded, it was hard to get really mad about not knowing about Wade's mom in the first place since it wasn't like Peter had told Wade about Aunt May. Peter kept a lot of secrets from Wade, very important secrets like his identity, what he looked like with the mask off, his phone number, his address, the names of his family and friends. It was unfair to get mad when Wade didn't share _his_ secrets in response.

Nathan Summers was the perfect example. Peter hadn't even known they knew each other. He also didn't know how the men in the alley knew Wade or knew about him and Wade, but obviously they had cared enough to threaten the boyfriend of their friend. 

He didn't like how knowledge of their relationship was getting out. At least it was only in Wade's circle instead of Peter's, so surely there weren't very many people left who would find out. This was his personal secret and he had enjoyed how he hadn't had to explain anything or justify anything. He just got to enjoy it ... until now. 

Peter slipped into the bedroom and made a face at the scattered weaponry and discarded Taco Bell wrappers. Wade made Peter look like a neat freak. He picked his way through the debris to the bed and leaned over to grab the crumpled blanket, when he caught sight of Wade's phone on the nightstand. Peter snatched it up and toggled through the contact list quickly, relieved that there wasn't a lock screen. The list was way longer than he expected and all of them seemed to be nicknames or callsigns rather than real names, but none of them even remotely suggested they were his. No 'Spidey', no spider emojis, no oblique references, not even a nickname. He might have thought this was just the wrong phone, but Nathan was on the list under at least three different names. 

Did that mean that Wade _didn't_ have his number? If so, then where had his mom gotten it from? Did she have some kind of secret government connections? Was she in the same kind of business as Wade?

Shaking his head, Peter set the mystery aside for later. He put the phone back down and grabbed the blanket, shaking it out before he carried it back into the living room.

Nathan smiled when he reappeared with the blanket. The smile made Nathan seem less like an asshole, made him warm and real and _human_. He lifted the abandoned controller out of Wade's lap as Peter draped the blanket over him and tucked it in.

Wade twitched, brow scrunching. 

"Shhhhh," Nathan's soft shush rose in volume to a low rumble, "Go back to sleep, Wade. It's my turn to keep watch."

Peter realized that Wade had been coiling like a spring when he relaxed, his entire body going lax as he rubbed his cheek against Nathan's shoulder, wriggling a little deeper under the blanket. In an instant, he was gone again, fallen back into peaceful sleep.

Peter's eyebrows rose as he looked at Nathan. Nathan just looked back as he let go of the controller he had gotten from Wade and sent it floating toward the television stand. Peter caught it out of the air and hopped onto the ceiling, waggling the controller suggestively.

"What?" Nathan asked at normal volume, dropping any effort to be quiet.

"Hey, shhh," Peter hissed back.

"I've put a sound barrier over him." Either Peter's confusion was obvious or Nathan was cheating with telepathy because he added, "I'm telekinetically manipulating the air molecules around him. They move to disrupt sound waves. It's an advanced technique."

That smugness was very annoying. "Why didn't you do that before?"

"He would have noticed and woken up. Now that he knows I'm on watch the sudden silence won't startle him."

Peter shook his head as he unpacked all of that. He didn't really think of Nathan and Wade doing anything together since he would rather not think of Nathan at all, but they had obviously done plenty of missions together over the course of their friendship. 

"Well, you're stuck here for now as a pillow," Peter finally responded, "I'll play you."

"Very well," Nathan agreed, lips twisting into a smirk as he reset the race. 

"I have a bad feeling about this," Peter muttered to himself.

Nathan was a picture of smugness, "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Spider Kenobi."

* * *

Nathan beat Peter like a drum. If only his spider sense would warn him about being sharked in games instead of just his imminent demise.

Nathan played Mario Kart competitively with telekinesis. It was impossible to match his precise mental manipulation of the game even with Peter's enhanced responses. Nathan was practicing how to do the same with his hands instead of with his mind, a skill he was only perfecting when Wade was asleep and unable to challenge him, the great cheating lump. 

If Peter had learned anything, it was that Nathan Summers was a ruthless lunatic when it came to winning Mario Kart. Like, the man completely refused to lose and he did not play fair. How did Wade put up with this? No wonder he spent half of every conversation about Nathan complaining about him.

Peter went home in disgust.

* * *

Later on, at home, curled up in bed, it finally occurred to Peter why he had never seen Wade so peaceful. 

He had never seen Wade sleep. Not once. Not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That lady that Peter thinks is Wade's mom is Blind Al, who is not his mom. :D
> 
> "Yellow Peach" is Princess Daisy. She is referred to like that because I never learned her name when I played Mario Kart, I just thought she was a palette swap of Princess Peach. It is meant to indicate that Peter has a casual relationship with the Mario games. He'll play them with his friends, but he's not invested in the lore.


	4. Communication Gaps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many hues of friendships, buy they're all casting shade on Peter.

The first inkling Peter had that Siryn was annoyed with him was the screaming. Of course, that was also her super power, so he didn't immediately remark on it until she had knocked him right out of the sky with the sound waves.

"I canna believe you!" she stormed right up to him in a tower of rage and slapped him, "How dare you play with Wade's heart!"

Or rather, she swung at him and Peter swayed so far back that he back flipped through a hand stand and landed on the side an air conditioning unit. 

"Ooooo! Hold still!"

"I'm not gonna just hold still and let you hit me!" he shot back, indignant at the assault. 

Siryn screamed, hands fisted at her sides, her face scrunched in anger. The shock wave crumpled the steel of the air conditioning unit and dropped Peter to his knees beside it, hands clamped tight over his ears as he yelled in pain.

The sound faded as she panted, in rage more than exhaustion. "You blackguard, I trusted you!"

"Hey! Why does that have anything to do with Wade?" Through the fading pain came Peter's confusion, because him being trusted had nothing to do with Wade at all. 

"You're supposed to be a good man! A kind man!"

"I am!"

"Then why have I only heard about this from Frost? Frost!" Siryn looked fit to burst, "Wade should have been callin' me every day to talk about nettin' you and I have to hear it from that homewrecking tart months later!"

"What?"

"The only reason Wade wouldna be callin' me is if you _made_ him not call me," Siryn's flame red hair floated around her in a cloud, lifted by the low vibrations of her growl.

"Yeah, I did!" Peter snapped, pushing himself to his feet as he got angry at the unfounded accusation that hovered in her words, "I asked him to keep it a secret! It's my relationship, not yours or anyone else's!"

"It's Wade relationship too, ya self centered _insect_," Siryn hissed, "and Wade loves to talk! He especially loves to talk about the people he loves!"

Peter threw his hands into the air, "What part of _secret_ do you not understand?"

"I'm his friend!"

"Yeah? Then why have I never seen you, huh? I've seen Cable twice now." Peter held up two fingers and waved them around, "Twice!"

Siryn's anger wavered and she tossed her hair over her shoulder in dismissal, "That's not important."

"Not important?!" Peter snapped, indignant, "You're a friend who's never around!"

"I don't need to see him every day to care about him!" Siryn shot right back, "And I don't need to spend time with him just in costume!"

Peter's split second hesitation, driven by the fact that he never saw Wade when he himself was out of costume, gave Siryn the leverage to take the high ground once again.

"So don't think I'm not watching you, Spider-Man," she declared, floating into the air on a burst of sound, "If you hurt Wade, I'll hurt you right back. When I'm done with you, you'll never hear another word again. Then you won't have to worry about _secrets_ anymore!"

* * *

Wade and Nathan were in the kitchen when Peter climbed through the window. Wade was working at the counter, chopping carrots, a pile of vegetables at his elbow, while Nathan leaned against the refrigerator. They were talking, but Peter couldn't understand a single word of it.

[How much for that gun behind the counter?] Wade asked, sliding the carrots over to make space for the celery.

[Those aren't for sale without a license. Would you like some grenades?] Nathan grabbed the carrot slice at the end of the cutting board, leaned his head back, and tossed it in the air to catch it in his mouth.

[Grenades?] Wade repeated, snatching the carrot slice out of the mid-air.

Nathan blinked innocently. "Grenades." His golden eye flared and the carrot moved back toward his open mouth, dragging Wade's hand with it. 

[Grenades, grenades, grenades,] Wade repeated with a growl as he yanked on the carrot and Nathan yanked harder on it the other way with telekinesis. [I love grenades.]

[Me too,] Nathan agreed, biting down as the carrot entered his open mouth, catching Wade's fingers between his teeth and clamping down on them with carrot chomping prejudice.

[Ow!,] Wade yelped, glaring as he swung his other arm around to thrust the knife at Nathan, the sharp point coming to a stop right before his nose, [You're lucky I didn't drunk you in the face! Or stab you! Let go.]

Nathan didn't even flinch. Instead, he smirked around his catch, a garbled playful growl slipping between his teeth. 

Wade hissed, the knife dropping to his side, [If you think I'm going to just stand here and take -- ]

"_What_ are you two doing?" Peter asked loudly as he dropped onto the kitchen table from the ceiling. 

"Oh, hey, Spidey. I'm threatening Nate with death and Nate is eating my carrots, for which he _deserves_ death," Wade replied with shocking aplomb as he waved the knife at Spider-Man, his fingers still shoved in Nathan's mouth.

Nathan's lips pursed around Wade's fingers as he let them slide free of his mouth with an indecent, tongue licking pop. "Cooking dinner."

Wade glared at his now carrot less fingers as if they had personally offended him with their failure to hold on. Nathan crunched obnoxiously loudly on his carrot in smug victory. Wade gave Nathan the two fingered salute with his shiny wet fingers.

"Is that what it was?" To Peter it looked a lot like Cable was _flirting_ with Peter's boyfriend. He hopped off the table. It hardly mattered if he was getting it dirty since the whole apartment was never actually clean. He could see a pizza box hiding behind the couch from where he stood. "What about the grenades?"

Wade looked at him blankly, mouthing, "Grenades?"

"That was just conversational practice," Nathan answered in his stead, now finished swallowing the stolen carrot slice, "Wade's learning the language I grew up with."

Peter looked between them blankly.

Wade shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck, "It'll be useful at some point, right?" He turned abruptly back to the cutting board. If Peter didn't know better, he would have said that Wade was embarrassed. "You staying for dinner?"

He'd seen that counter host dismembered limbs. There was no way he was eating anything that had touched it. Not even for the threat of Cable flirting with Wade, was Peter going to sit there and avoid having to eat anything that Wade cooked for a whole hour. "Oh no, I just stopped by to say hi. So, hi!"

Wade looked back over his shoulder at Peter to grin, "Hi!"

Peter hooked a finger under the edge of his mask and pulled it up over his nose. He rose up on his tiptoes to kiss Wade full on the lips as the other man turned to him, catching the back of Wade's head to hold him in place when he might have startled. Wade hummed happily, automatically grabbing his hip to hold him as he returned the kiss with interest.

It was only because Peter's eyes were open that he caught the pure annoyance that flashed across Nathan's face. Peter broke the kiss when his spider sense began to tingle, letting Wade go. It was quite satisfying the way Wade followed him for a moment, as if magnetically drawn to his lips, before pulling back with a huff.

"And also bye," Peter said with satisfaction as he rolled his mask back down.

Wade stuck his tongue out playfully, "Bye, Spidey. Try not to die out there."

"As if I would," Peter waved jauntily over his shoulder as he headed back out of the window, "Bye, Cable."

"Spider-Man," was the neutral reply. Peter counted it a solid victory as he swung away.

* * *

[It should have been 'punch' instead of 'drunk' before.] Nathan corrected, now that Spider-Man was finally gone.

[What?] Wade said blankly.

[When you said you were lucky you didn't punch me in the face.]

[Oh!] Wade's face scrunched up. [Those sound very similar.]

[They do,] Nathan agreed, [Though there is a lot of punching that happens when you get drunk.]

[Like punch drunk,] Wade perked up, [Punch drunk, punch drunk, punch drunk!] he repeated, rolling the words around in his mouth with relish, [That sounds great.]

Nathan leaned his head back against the refrigerator and felt nothing but pure contentment wash over him, sweeping away the little aggravations like Wade's current boyfriend or the long subway ride. He smiled happily at Wade, [It really does.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Words in [ ] are in a foreign language, translated for the reader's convenience. Early on, Wade was canonically fluent in a number of languages. I see no reason why that wouldn't still be the case. 
> 
> Siryn is Theresa Cassidy. Frost is Emma Frost, also known as the White Queen.


	5. Ganging Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A group of mercenaries is called a gossip. Peter Parker learns this the hard way.

There was nothing that Peter loved more than a peaceful patrol. Swinging through the air with just him, the wind, the sound of traffic drifting up from the streets below, and not a single person needing his help. This was the way life should be every day.

On the apex of his swing, something gleamed in the corner of his eyehole right before his webline was cut. Peter rolled in the air, startled but not panicked. His spider sense was silent, so whatever it was was not immediately threatening. He pressed down on his webshooter to cast a new line and it jammed. He tried twice more before giving up on that one to try the other. This line shot true and caught the base of a lightning rod.

Peter twisted and swung to the side, aiming for the rooftop. With one webshooter down, he would need to replace it quickly before whatever cut his first webline turned into trouble.

His spider sense screamed alarm. Peter twisted again in midair to dodge, but it was his line that once more took the blow. Something round and heavy -- a shield?! -- struck the line and stuck, jarring his grip in the same moment that electricity lanced through his body, paralyzing him.

Peter wanted to scream but couldn't as he fell through the air. The webline snapped, charred from the current, dropping him into a hard landing on the roof. Peter's body rolled like a doll before it lost momentum and stopped. All he could do was breathe and hope the spastic twitching in his limbs stopped before the owner of the electric shield arrived.

Luck was not with Peter -- not that it was ever with Peter. Three figures landed in his line of sight and he could hear footsteps behind his head as well. Peter surged up and felt his muscles limply respond, letting him roll over onto his hands and knees, a much better position than just laying helplessly on his back.

A woman's voice cut the silence like a cold knife, "Don't try to move."

"I would hate to stun you again," a man said mildly, muffled by some sort of mask. Not Electro or Shocker, the voice was wrong for them, but someone that he thought he had heard once or twice before.

Peter shook his head, flexing every muscle that would respond to his commands. The charge was still affecting him, which meant that it had been designed either to kill or to take down someone with supremely enhanced recovery or shock resistance. The chances were good that this had been planned specifically for him. 

"We only want to talk," another woman said from behind him, more kindly than the first, but there was a sharpness behind the sweet tone.

"You could have just asked nicely," Peter managed to relay, but wasn't sure how much got through his numb, sluggish lips. Thankfully the rest of him was finally coming back online and he lifted his head, focusing on his attackers.

For a split second he thought the woman in front of him was Black Cat, but it was only the catsuit that misled him. Her hair was black and her skin was paper white with a black circle over one eye: Domino. Peter barely knew of her and mostly in conjunction with the X-Men. That was the problem with keeping track of the X crowd. There were too many of them. She had some kind of gambling power? 

The man that seemed familiar had a cape, a shield, and a skull-shaped mask: Taskmaster. A mercenary like Deadpool and a tactical planner with the ability to perfectly mimic the fighting styles of others. No enhanced strength or speed, but he was probably the brains of this operation. The question was who had paid him to drop Spider-Man? Peter was going to need to know before he got free of them.

"But where would the fun be in that?" a dark gleeful voice asked behind him. Spider-Man immediately twisted around, putting his back to Taskmaster without hesitation just to keep Bullseye in his sights. Taskmaster would just shoot him. Bullseye would kill everything around him and _then_ kill him. He would need all his wits to block those shots. Bullseye grinned manically, eyes gleaming in wild satisfaction at Peter's reaction as he flipped a knife casually into the air.

"If you --" Peter started, only to be interrupted by the man to his left. Long coat, yellow sunglasses, a pale x-shaped scar crossed his face in an affect that would make Peter wince in sympathy in any other circumstances. Peter didn't recognize him at all. A new player? Or maybe too small fry to ever cross his path?

"You're the one dating Deadpool?" he asked in disbelief, "How? _Why_?!" 

"Love is blind?" Bullseye asked the air, rolling his eyes, which was the most casual and normal thing that Peter had ever seen Bullseye do. "And possibly deaf?"

"Deaf for sure," X-Guy agreed with a nod.

"Wade's not that bad," the woman between then said. The first thing that came to mind when he looked at her was 'sexy cowgirl'. She was the playboy bunny of cowgirls and had the steel kahunas to stand next to Bullseye in next to nothing. Peter didn't know her either. "He just never has anyone to talk to."

"Hey!" Peter yelled to cut through the chatter. "Who are you people?" he asked at a more reasonable volume. He knew three out of the six, but the other three were a mystery. The woman between X-Guy and Taskmaster hadn't even spoken. She was an attractive woman, but she had no costume. She held what looked like a shock baton, but that was it. "And how do you know Deadpool?"

Cowgirl broke the developing silence with a shrug, "I'm Outlaw. Mercenary. I work with Wade sometimes."

X-Guy nodded, jerking a thumb at Outlaw, "I'm Agent X. Same gig as Outlaw."

"Sandi," Normal Girl said with a smile and a wave, "I'm the manager of Agency X, which is a mercenary hire service."

"_I_ run Agency X," X-Guy corrected.

"You run shit," Sandi shot back mercilessly, cutting X-Guy nearly dead where he stood. 

Bullseye snickered meanly as X-Guy squawked, "Oi! I'm paying the bills here."

"Oh? Where's the checkbook, then?" Sandi asked innocently.

"Ummmmm ... "

"Sandi used to work for Wade," Domino added, sparing X-Guy further humiliation.

Sandi nodded agreeably to Domino before fixing all her attention back on Peter. She slapped the shock baton against her hand and smiled, "I asked them to come with me to talk to you about Wade."

"Let's keep this simple," Taskmaster said coolly as his shield charged up with a threatening crackle, "Fuck with Wade's fragile heart and one thousand volts of electricity will be the least of your worries."

Bullseye smiled widely and opened his mouth, but Taskmaster cut across him, "It goes without saying that Bullseye will be the worst of your worries."

"I ain't never had a job so _sweet_," Bullseye practically purred, not bothered by Taskmaster's interruptions, "as offing one of Wilson's lovers. He's going to be so _mad_." The hungry anticipation that radiated from Bullseye almost distracted Peter from the _point_.

Almost.

"One of -- How many lovers does Wade have?!" He yelped.

"A lot?" X-Guy asked the air guilelessly, "I mean most of us have -- "

The shovel talk by a group of killers suddenly paled before Wade's potential current unfaithfulness. When Peter had demanded privacy, had he been shooting himself in the foot by giving Wade the opportunity to be plenty secretive himself?

"What?!"

X-Guy put his hands out in a 'whoa' gesture, "Not, like, right _now_. I think?" He scratched his cheek. "I mean, like, in the past?"

"Have you _all_ fucked Wade?!" Peter demanded, looking around the circle furiously.

Domino raised her hand, "I haven't."

"That's because you were fucking Cable," Sandi said with a huff.

"Me neither," X-Guy chimed in, making a face.

"You're his weird half copy," Sandi made a face in return, "That would be creepy."

"Exactly," X-Guy nodded.

"Guilty as charged," Outlaw said happily. Peter glared at her. "What? That refractory period is great. I'd ride him any time."

Sandi giggled, "Isn't it?"

"When was this?" Taskmaster asked, staring at her.

"Oh you know," Sandi shrugged, reaching up to coil a lock of her hair around her fingers, "A couple times when we first started working together. He's sweet." 

Taskmaster grunted a non answer to that. Peter was getting the vibe that the two of them were currently a couple.

She smiled at Taskmaster, "What about you?"

"What about him?" X-Guy asked, annoyed.

"Aw, c'mon Alex," Sandi smirked, "_everyone_ knows Tasky and Wade have fooled around."

"_I_ didn't know," newly outed Alex huffed.

"That's because you're incapable of critical thought," Taskmaster said with an aura of smugness that belied his completely low blow. He shrugged, "Sometimes we get drunk together."

"Unlike you, I have standards," Bullseye jumped in, "We fucked back when he was pretty." His eyes fluttered shut and he smiled a dark, cruel smile. "And he used to be very, very pretty. Pale, though. I guess that was about when he found out about the cancer." His eyes opened as the smile twisted into something nasty and gleeful. "Must have been hoping I'd put him out of his misery. It's for the best really, since he's a lot more fun to kill _now_."

The circle of mercenaries stared at him in silent horror before Outlaw broke the silence by punching her fist into her palm, "I oughta break every twisted bone in your body."

Bullseye smiled even wider, a manic gleam coming to his eye as he stance shifted, a glint of something small and sharp flickering between the knuckles of his hand. "Is your skin as tough as your fists?" He beckoned her forward.

Before it could end in a brawl Taskmaster thrust his arm out in front of Bullseye, "Try to remember why we're here."

Bullseye smirked at Outlaw, mouthing 'Lucky' at her before he relaxed his stance. His attention shifted to Taskmaster, a hand coming up to press against the small of caped man's back, stroking. "Awful brave of you to get between me and a kill." 

"If you think I'd be in the same space as you without wearing full body carbon weave Kevlar, then you must be as stupid as you look," Taskmaster voice was cold contempt. He twisted and knocked Bullseye's hand aside with the kind of smooth dismissal that Peter wished he could emulate whenever he was in the same space as Nathan.

The dismissal just seemed to rile Bullseye up, though, if the way his eyes darkened and he stepped closer into Taskmaster space was any indication, "You dressed up just for me?"

"Is it just me or is it getting hot up here?" Alex muttered, loudly enough to be heard.

Sandi fanned herself with a hand, "It's not just you." The smoky eyes she was sending Taskmasker's way were warm enough to put Bullseye's to shame.

"Oh my god," Peter said abruptly, horrified, "I've had indirect contact with Bullseye's dick." 

"Yes, yes, almost everyone here has had a piece of Wade," Outlaw said cheerfully, "That's not the fun part! The fun part is who's gotten a piece of Nathan!" Outlaw thrust her arm happily into the air and waved it around, "I sure did!"

Domino and Sandi raised their hands, sharing a rueful glance.

Taskmaster sighed. Sandi gasped and turned to stare at him, "Oh my god, you didn't! When?"

Heads whipped around to stare at Taskmaster. Even Bullseye looked intrigued.

Taskmaster folded him arms, though whether it was in discomfort or stubbornness, Peter couldn't tell. "After the breakout stunt. He was 'making it up' to me." The air quotes were obvious even without him using his hands.

"He totally played you," Sandi huffed.

"He didn't play me," Taskmaster actually sounded annoyed, "I knew what he was gunning for. I just didn't turn down the freebie."

Bullseye and Alex nodded sagely, like no sensible person turned down freely offered sexual favors. 

Domino groaned and covered her face with her hands, "He didn't. No wait, of _course he did_."

Outlaw was sympathetic to her plight, "Wasn't he dating you then?"

"Yes!" Domino practically wailed into her hands.

"Well, that's why you're broken up with him now," Outlaw said wisely, "obviously."

"I'm just surprised that he hasn't fucked Spider-Man here," Alex observed, apropos of nothing.

Peter straightened with shock and horror, squawking, "What? No way!"

"C'mon, you can tell us," Sandi said kindly, "we're not going to judge you if you had a piece of that chiseled god."

"Excuse you," Taskmaster snapped tartly.

"Baby, everyone we know is a human masterpiece," Sandi blushed and waved her hand in the air, "_You're_ a masterpiece. It doesn't mean anything."

"Hmph."

"What do you mean, not judge?" Bullseye said with a smirk, "That's what we're here to do. Judge him wanting and then kick his ass." When Taskmaster glared at him, he amended it to, "Well, that's what _I'm_ here for."

"Why would you even _think_ that I've slept with Cable?!" Peter demanded.

Domino gave him a pitying look, "Because Nate sleeps with everyone that Wade's interested in."

Outlaw nodded sagely, "Or everyone Wade's already slept with." 

"Not me," Bullseye said smugly.

She shot Bullseye a glare, "We didn't know Wade was so stupid as to sleep with you. And while he was a fragile norm, too!"

"You're lucky Nate hasn't already tried to ice you," Domino muttered.

Bullseye grinned widely, "Let him come and try it."

"You're lucky he hasn't _gone back in time_ to ice you before you got a piece of that," Domino shot back.

"He'd just be jealous I got there first," Bullseye's smugness could not be overcome with threats of death.

Domino straightened abruptly, pointing her finger at everyone in turn, "Hey! None of you are allowed to tell Nate about Tolliver or Bullseye here." She jerked her thumb back at Bullseye, who snapped his teeth at her with a smirk.

"What? Why not?" Outlaw pouted.

"I'm saving it for when I need to one up him," Domino said tartly, "which I think I deserve."

Outlaw held up her hands, "Okay, okay, my lips are zipped."

Alex put his chin in his hands, "Do you think they fucked Bob?"

There was a long contemplative silence that surprised Peter.

"Bob's married," Taskmaster said finally.

"That doesn't make him off limits," Alex argued, "He's Wade's human puppy."

"I don't think so," Domino said thoughtfully, "Nate's complained about Bob, but more in the 'I had to send him home, Wade was making him clean' kind of way."

"Who's Bob?!" Peter demanded, even as he recalled the two guys in the alley who had threatened him. One of them was named Bob. 

"Are you _sure_ you're dating Wade? You haven't mixed him up with some other regenerating stabby person?" Alex squinted at Peter behind his sunglasses. He looked at Taskmaster. "Are _we_ sure he's dating Wade?"

"My sources are never wrong," Taskmaster said repressively.

"How can you not know about Bob?"

An aura of disapproval suddenly arrived. 

"Hey! I sleep with the guy, I don't quiz him about his life history!" Peter said indignantly, "Maybe if I had, I wouldn't have slept with him, since it means I've indirectly had contact with you losers!"

* * *

Peter didn't even care that Nathan was there. Nathan lounging on the couch reading the _Daily Bugle_ with his feet up was _nothing_ compared to the degenerate shenanigans that Peter had just been privy to. "Just how many people have to slept with?!"

The kitchen counter, the kitchen table, and part of the floor was covered in books and magazines. Wade roamed back and forth among them, flipping pages and muttering to himself. He looked up when Peter spoke, tilting his head, "Do I have to answer this question right now?"

Peter dropped into the thankfully empty kitchen chair, pushed a cook book aside, put his head on the table, and groaned. "That many."

"What does it matter? You're not a virgin either."

"I don't know, Wade," Nathan said casually, closing the _Daily Bugle_ in a rustle of paper, " ... now I'm curious too."

"You shut up, you degenerate slut," Peter lifted his head to glare at Nathan. 

Nathan blinked innocently behind his reading glasses. He methodically folded the paper and set it aside in a display of overt neatness that made Peter wonder how he could _stand_ the mess that Wade constantly generated. "Just because your era is in the sexual dark ages ... " Nathan started primly.

Wade rolled his eyes, "What? You're going to pull your 'I'm from the future' get out of jail free card?"

"Yes," was the infinitely smug reply as Nathan removed his reading glasses and put them away.

Wade flung one of his books at him. It bounced off thin air and drifted delicately sideways onto the coffee table beside the paper. "Fucking cheat codes!"

"Don't throw things at people, Wade," Nathan shot back snottily as he got up from the couch and joined them in the kitchen. All the books and magazines flipped themselves closed. "Use your words. You're good at that."

Wade cast a glance across his work and then glared at Nathan, slamming his fist into the opposite palm. "Ok, fine, how about: You have a pretty face, bro, it'd be a shame if I wrecked the shit out of it?" 

"You're the third," Peter sighed, derailing the brewing fight entirely. They shouldn't look so surprised. It wasn't like he was trolling for ladies as Spider-Man. Peter Parker was just a dinky nerd until he had superpowers and he was still a dinky nerd because he couldn't tell anyone about his superpowers.

"Wow. I am?" Wade grinned broadly and slapped Nathan's metal shoulder to get his attention. "I'm _third_, Nate!"

Nathan rolled his eyes at Wade before surprising Peter by smiling kindly and without any judgement at all. It was strange how transforming that simple facial expression was. Peter always got the impression from Nathan that Nathan wanted him _gone_, but now he could feel the full force of Nathan's charm like an almost physical blow. It suddenly wasn't a surprise that he was rolling in the kind of intimate opportunities that Peter had been privy to. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. When I was your age, I had only slept with my wife."

"What? Really?" Wade gaped at him, "You! What's with all your smug Mr. Sexually Free Future Morals bullshit if you've only slept with your wife!?"

"You didn't go cheating on Vanessa," Nathan pointed out casually, "Why would I cheat on my wife? I loved and respected her."

"That's true," Wade subsided, melancholy flashing across his features. "Lonely Hearts Widowers Club represent," he held out his fist and Nathan bumped it with his own.

Usually, Peter felt like he and Wade were peers. Intellectually, he knew Wade had to be at least a decade older than him, but Wade's freewheeling lifestyle and immature bachelor habits always leant the impression that he was only a little older than Peter rather than a _lot_ older. Moments like this, though, where Wade talked about life experiences that Peter had never had, he felt the gap between them acutely. 

"He's been a skank after she was dead," Peter took the potshot at Nathan to push away the uncomfortable feeling of being _too young_ for this conversation.

"That was later," Nathan nodded in agreement to Peter, taking all the sting right out his blow, "After I came here."

"So why not before?" Wade asked with open curiosity. Peter was perfectly happy for this conversation to dig into Nathan's personal history rather than his own. Besides, this was the kind of gossipy backstory he only got second hand from Johnny Storm. 

"Looking back, I think I didn't really have the opportunity," Nathan said thoughtfully, "T-Blood and I were always on the move when we weren't getting shot at ... and I had the worst crush on my guardian, which probably made everyone else seem less interesting in comparison. The lure of the unattainable and forbidden," he added wryly.

"Oh Nate, were you hot for teacher?" Wade folded his hands on the top of Nathan's metal shoulder as he leaned in, obviously delighted with the thought.

"He wasn't my teacher," Nathan corrected, "he was my guardian." 

"Nate!" Wade shook him using his grip on his shoulder, "That isn't any fun. You can't just tell me you had a crush on an older man and then not give me _details_!"

Nathan laughed, which made Wade stop shaking him, "You know life is not a porno, right?"

"It should be!" Wade huffed, "so until it _becomes_ a porno, I want the dirt, the skinny, the 411!"

Nathan tilted his head back thoughtfully, making a humming noise that only made Wade antsy.

"Nate! Spill!"

"There's not much to say," Nathan finally gave in, "He was barely around. He had other responsibilities beyond me, but he was always there when I needed him most." The heated look he directed at Wade didn't make any sense.

"Lusting from afar, huh?" 

"And up close. He got between me and a bullet often enough that I can still picture the shape of his ass."

"You didn't!" Wade gasped happily.

"Then there were the abs you could bounce a credit off of," Nathan continued cheerfully, clearly enjoying Wade's responses to the tale of sordid teenage crushes, "He was fast, merciless, and _handsome_." The teasing lilt of his voice dropped suddenly into heated intensity on the word 'handsome' before leveling back out again. "The elders probably should have thought about our poor teenage libidos before they sent a man like that to help us."

Wade snickered, "He never took advantage of the opportunity?" He ruffled Nathan's hair playfully with wistful affection. "Those big soulful eyes, that serious face. You were an adorable sprout." His voice suddenly turned teasing, "But you _were_ a skinny little beanpole. All this buffness took a while to fill out."

"Like I said, he was barely there. He'd swoop in when we were in trouble to pull our fat out of the fire and then he'd have to move on to the next emergency."

"Awww, poor little Nate," Wade smile had gone mellow and sweet, sympathizing with the teenager Nathan had once been, "Your knight in shining armor had a lot of damsels to rescue and dragons to fight, huh?"

"Isn't that how it always is when you're the knight?" Nathan smiled back, "Besides, he _was_ much older than me ... he probably had someone to go home to."

"Older _and_ married," Wade tsked, delighted all over again.

"Like Bea Arthur," Nathan said slyly.

Wade laughed. "She was there for me in my darkest hour! Only a philistine would fail to appreciate such beauty, such charm, such grace!"

Nathan smiled, soft and sweet, "Exactly."

"Oh." The drama left Wade abruptly as he looked at Nathan with solemn silence. When he smiled, it was the brave little toaster of smiles, tremulous and fragile. "Go, go, fantastic fantasy crushes that are totally out of our leagues."

"I don't know," Nathan said kindly, "I think you still got a chance. She might answer those letters you send her one day."

Wade snorted, but his smile evened out, "Oh shut up. She throws them in the trash. No! Her _personal assistant_ throws them in the trash! Like they should."

"Her most adoring fan? Perish the thought!" Nathan continued lightly, but with the solid support one's friends give when they tell you lies about the crush you just embarrassed yourself in front of, "She just doesn't want to lead you on. You're too young for her."

Wade rolled his eyes, but his mood had brightened considerably as he huffed, "Jerk!" He bumped shoulders with Nathan, shoving lightly. Nathan pushed back, making them just lean against each other. "Think you'll ever bump into your guardian again?"

"I expect I'll run into that old man again someday," Nathan said mildly, an odd little smirk lifting his lips.

"Yeah? Well, jump his withered bones then. You can get Viagra in this time, he'll be fine."

Nathan laughed, an abrupt startled sound that made Wade grin at him, "Aw, c'mon Nate, it's not _that_ funny."

Tired of being completely excluded from the conversation, Peter took the opportunity to shove back in, "My two were a close friend of mine and a girl I went out with."

They straightened, no longer leaning against each other, but without a single drop of self consciousness between them for having done it in front of him. Peter knew Wade didn't get embarrassed, but Nathan was just beyond the pale.

"I think that's pretty common stuff," Peter continued in a somewhat brittle tone, shrugging.

"Girl next door and best friend? It's like right out of a manga!" Wade said happily, clapping his hands.

"I met her in college. She wasn't next door," Peter shook his head. Nathan leaned back against the kitchen counter while Peter lobbed the verbal ball directly into Wade's court, "What about you, Wade?"

Nathan made a sound of agreement as he shoved another cook book out of the way with an elbow. 

"Me?" Wade scrunched his face up as he turned away and started stacking magazines instead of bursting into a torrent of words about his grand history of sexual conquest. Thanks to Wade's fellow mercenaries jumping him on a rooftop, Peter was now privy to plenty of his past exploits, so he thought this would have been an easy question. "Vanessa?" 

Wade nodded decisively to his own indecisiveness, "Vanessa definitely."

That didn't sound like any kind of sureness. Not when Peter knew that Bullseye and Tolliver had been pretty early on if Domino was any real measure of truth.

"I met Vanessa," Nathan said casually, fingers tapping the edge of the counter, "Do you remember anyone before her?"

Wade shrugged, "Well, you met her. That was a lot."

"Was Vanessa your high school sweetheart?" Peter asked curiously, probing for more information after that cryptic remark. Wade had mentioned Vanessa before, but he had been under the impression that Wade met her after he was already a mercenary. Considering how available Wade seemed, Peter thought he would have started earlier.

Nathan nodded to him, but Peter couldn't figure out why.

"No," Wade shook his head, then distress flashed across his face so fast that Peter wasn't even sure he had seen it, "I met her later."

"Well … you must have dated in high school," Nathan said gently.

"Of course I -- " Wade frowned, "-- did."

"Sure you did," Nathan said agreeably, "You told me about your dad, how he was always getting on your case about girls and staying out late."

The relief that filled Wade's face as he relaxed puzzled Peter, but he gamely picked up what Nathan had laid down, "You must have gone to prom, right? Even if you were picking her up on your bike instead of a limo."

"Sally was pretty sweet," Wade brightened, "she wasn't even mad about the corsage."

"It's the thought that counts," Nathan smiled so very kindly, "Knowing you, you flirted with at least one of your teachers ... or all of the teachers."

"C'mon, Nate, Mrs. Reynolds was too good for that kind of thing, but she was shaped," Wade traced a voluptuous figure in the air with both hands.

"You were in the army. I bet you had a girl in every port," Peter picked up, his heart starting to hurt as he realized that Wade _didn't remember_, not really. That all of this, that they were teasing out of him piece by piece with suggestions wasn't anything he could recall on his own. He had never talked about anyone except Vanessa and now Peter realized why. 

Wade leaned against the counter and smiled at them happily, "Not every port ... but there were always girls when we went out on the town, even if something didn't always come of it."

Nathan flashed Peter one of his knee-wobbling smiles in response to Wade's smile, "Did you ever think of settling down after the army? Or was it just Vanessa who straightened out your carousing ways."

"Carousing?" Wade actually laughed, "What is this? Regency England?" He shrugged, "I didn't think about parking my boots until Vanessa. There were too many places to go and women like to settle down, right? They want kids and kids need stability. I've never been stable in my life." 

Nathan's mood abruptly and inexplicably darkened as he pushed away from the counter, "You're stable enough."

Wade flashed Nathan a grateful smile and shook his head, "That's sweet, but I'm crazy and my memory is termite riddled wood and you know it."

Nathan clasped Wade's shoulder with a broad hand, squeezing gently, face a mask of concern, "Is it getting worse again?"

"No," Wade shook his head.

"Wade," the gentle pressure of his name pushed more words out of Wade where he might have been uncharacteristically silent.

"I can't get back what's already gone, okay? It's just ... not there."

"I can go in and look around," Nathan offered and they were leaning together once more, automatically folding in with each other. Nathan's arm slid over Wade's shoulders and Wade stepped into the circle of his grip without hesitation, pressing against his side. 

"The last time you did that, you ended up bleeding from your eyes and nose," Wade said, annoyed.

"It was worth it."

"Not to me," Wade groused, "I thought you were going to _die_ and you die way too much for a guy who can't regenerate."

"It wouldn't kill me. It would just horribly maim me if I'm not careful," Nathan said lightly, touching their temples together.

"Which is why you're not going to do it! Talk sense into him, Spidey!"

"Don't go digging in Wade's brain, Cable," Peter said flatly.

* * *

"How long have you known Cable?" Peter asked after Nathan was gone.

"A couple years," Wade said easily, "Five or six, I guess, since I first tried to kill him. Why?"

"Well, you knew what he looked like as a kid ... but you're not older than him, right?"

Wade made a face, "Urgh, I'm not _that_ old. What do I look like? Wolverine? Grrr argh!" Wade waved his hands, miming claws. "You know how it is. He gets kidnapped by dimensional craziness, his essence gets scattered, he deages back into a baby, then you have to rescue the baby and take the baby home and watch it grow to full size at accelerated speed. All that crazy X-Men stuff."

Peter snickered because that was exactly how crazy the X-Men could be. "A beanpole, huh?"

"It was _adorable_!" Wade cooed happily, "Such a skinny little thing, all elbows and knees. You just wanted to feed him. He was so fluffy and serious!"

"Is that why you're always giving him food?" Peter asked, secretly pleased with the idea that Wade fed Nathan out of the sole desire to mock him in a long running joke. 

Wade's face squinched up in real thought, "Maybe it is ... he doesn't eat enough, though. Always rushing around like he's too busy to sit down. Mutants are high calorie engines, yanno."

"Don't I know it," Peter agreed ruefully, patting his own stomach. Even though he wasn't a mutant, his own fuel demands were definitely higher than his friends and family.

"Then why don't you ever eat anything I give you?" Wade asked him, sudden and sharp.

"Uhhh ... " Peter swiftly looked for an escape. Just because he didn't like Wade feeding Nathan didn't mean he wanted to risk his own health eating anything that Wade cooked or ordered and then left sitting on the counter for five weeks. "I hear a robbery in progress! Gotta go!" 

"Hey!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agent X is Alex Hayden. Outlaw is Inez Temple. Domino is Neena Thurman. Sandi is Sandi Brandenburg. Taskmaster is Tony Masters. Bullseye is Lester. In the comics, Lester had no last name. He acquired a full name in the movies and TV series. Tolliver is also known as Tyler, Aliya's son. Aliya was Nathan's wife. T-Blood is an old friend of Nathan's. Vanessa Carlysle is Copycat. In canon, Vanessa was Wade's only mentioned girlfriend (and fiancee) until _Deadpool_ v2. 
> 
> Actually, Wade _is_ old enough to have known Nathan when Nathan was a baby since Nathan was born when Wade was in his mid thirties and Scott was probably in his early twenties. Of course, Peter is also old enough to have known Nathan as a baby since he is one of Scott's contemporaries. ^.~


	6. Even the Kitchen Sink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not just the _Daily Bugle_ that's making Peter's life difficult.

Peter picked up the paper and read the headline: SPIDER-MAN SEDUCES DEADPOOL INTO LIFE OF CRIME

That was one of J. J. Jameson's sensational headlines, but it was an entirely different reporter's article. Peter flipped the paper open to read it. J. J. did not let just anyone write an opinion piece about Spider-Man in _his_ paper. He reserved that privilege for himself.

Reporter Irene Merryweather happily gushed over what a fine upstanding citizen Deadpool had become, folding himself into the structure of the former island of Providence and supporting lawful government authority during the SHRA business. She conveniently glossed over what a mess SHRA had been, or that Providence had been destroyed. Irene Merryweather went on to say that after being separated from positive influences and hooking up with Spider-Man, Deadpool had fallen back into old habits as a gun for hire, available to the highest bidder. She expanded it with how Spider-Man was not a positive moral influence on those he was closest to and thus was not good boyfriend material.

How did _everyone_ know he was dating Wade? How did _Irene_ know this much about Wade? _Peter_ didn't even know this much about Wade!

* * *

"Spider-Man," Captain America greeted, after waving him down. Since Peter was hardly going to ignore a summons from _Captain America_, he twisted in the air, kicked off a building and landed neatly before offering his hand for a shake. Captain took it, smiling seriously, "I need to talk to you about -- "

"Oh my fucking god!"

"Language!" Captain rebutted automatically

"I don't need a fucking talk about my fucking language or about who I'm fucking!" Peter snapped back, clutching his head as the horror before him came to pass despite his denials. "Fuck you, I'm leaving!" He jumped off the building.

Captain folded his arms over his perfectly sculpted chest and leaned over the edge to shout at him, "That _Daily Bugle_ was right! You are a bad influence on Deadpool!"

"_I'm_ a bad influence!?!" Peter yowled back, nearly incoherent with indignation as he swung away, giving Captain the finger with his free hand.

Steve started laughing, which made Tony, who was listening in on his ear piece, start laughing as well, "You didn't even talk to him!"

"He jumped off a building to escape me," Steve protested between gasping laughs, "You try!"

* * *

"Hey, Spider!" Tony blasted cheerfully as he brought the Iron Man armor alongside Spider-Man's swing, careful not to foul his line, "We need to talk about your boy."

"LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Spider-Man let go of his line, dropped twenty feet, and caught a new one to make a sharp left turn down an alley.

Tony gained altitude, made a wider turn and followed him from above. "JARVIS, play a safe sex videos. Something really terrible like that one Steve made."

"Must you, sir?"

"I must," Tony said cheerfully and turned up his speakers to blast Spider-Man from above. "Think of it as a public service announcement."

* * *

SPIDER-MAN REJECTS CONDOM, CORRUPTS YOUTH

Peter flung the paper right off the roof in exasperation. Iron Man had followed him halfway across the city and now the _Daily Bugle_ was rubbing it in.

* * *

Director Nick Fury's hand landed heavily on his shoulder. Peter's spidey sense jangled with caution, no doubt triggered by the hand of a master spy so close to his neck. "Parker."

Peter jerked to a halt, looking quickly around to check who had heard. There was no one in the hallway. In fact, the busy bustle of agents had suspiciously petered out and then stopped completely. A planned moment of privacy engineered by the man who stood beside him.

He glared at Fury through his mask anyway. That was supposed to be a secret and even speaking on the _USS Victory_ was inviting some other spy to find out about it.

"Your parents were my friends and I'm fond of you," Fury said calmly in response, his grip tightening, "but you're not my favorite agent."

"It's hard to be Natasha when you don't have breasts," Peter shot back, not sure where this was supposed to be going. He couldn't be as completely scary as Natasha without threatening people with spiders.

"Natasha is a valuable field agent," Fury agreed before shaking his head slightly, "but she's not my favorite agent."

Then who could possibly be Fury's favorite? Hawkeye? Clint did have a certain amount of personal charm. He had managed to turn the Black Widow with it. What did Hawkeye have to do with Peter, though?

"She's not immune to death and she doesn't have one of the most powerful X-Men wrapped around her little finger."

Peter's brain went blank in surprise. "Are you talking about _Wade_?!?!"

"You're strong and fast and tough," Fury continued mercilessly, "but you're morally inflexible and I already have access to all of your allies without needing to be allied to you. Excluding sentiment, Wilson is far more valuable to me. He has allies that I have no leverage over, he can't be killed, and he can be _bought_."

"I don't know whether to be insulted or not," Peter muttered in disbelief.

"Wilson will also hold a grudge for the rest of his very long life when he's been crossed."

"What are you even saying right now?" 

"If you break up with him, I don't intend to take a side ... but if there is a side that has to be taken, it won't be _yours_."

Peter gaped at him.

"So don't make me take a side." Fury clapped his shoulder before letting him go and continuing down the hallway. He paused to look behind him, "You are using protection, right?"

"Don't you start with me!"

* * *

"How are we even able to talk to them?" Peter asked, feeling antsy for having been dragged aboard the _USS Victory_, first to get the talk from old one eye and now for this.

"Galactic holo-projection," Ed the tech muttered, adjusting some settings, "a lot of the settled planets use it."

The second tech, Jeff, prodded the platform that held the projectors, "There's some kind of tech war going on out there. Like Blu-ray versus HD. The others use a universal flat screen instead ... but anyway, these guys use the GHP instead of the UFS."

"But why do they want to talk to _me_?" Peter sighed, giving the projector he was standing on a glum look. Supposedly this would beam a three dimensional picture of him to the aliens in the same way the other platform would get a picture of them.

The techs smirked at each other and then at him, giving him a real bad feeling. Ed started the call instead of answering him, "Initializing handshake now."

The holo-projector flickered on and suddenly in living color, the aliens stood before him. 

One of them was rather mundane, if alien. It was a head shorter than Peter, with a sturdy rounded body and four arms. The four arms had four fingers on each hand. It had yellow skin and its head was bald and shaped like an egg, with only one eye in the center of its face. It wore a pair of overalls and a cap that made it look like a handyman. There was even a wrench sticking out of its pocket. The translation bubble beside it turned blue, indicating 'he'.

The other one was _huge_. The top of its head brushed the ceiling and its four flat white eyes fixed sharply on Peter. It resembled an upright yellow skinned hippo with an almost feminine contour to the bulk of its mass. Instead of hands, it had stubby crab pincers tipped in red paint. Equally red paint traced parts of its broad thrusting snout. It was also wearing what appeared to be a purple dress. The translation bubble besides the space hippo turned red, indicating 'she'.

Overalls looked Peter up and down with his one eye and snorted, "This the guy?" 

Well, he said something that no one could understand and after a short delay, English text floated next to him from the translator.

"I'm Spider-Man," Peter said politely, "Nice to meet you."

Overalls grunted. "I'm Obb and this is Orksa."

Orksa sounded like a flute when she spoke, or maybe the wind whistling through reeds. Peter couldn't help but think of her as hippo, talking at a riverside. "You are a whisp of a human."

"He is pretty underwhelming," Obb agreed, as if he wasn't shorter and less interesting than Peter, "but he's got some of the same colors as your ex. Must be the right type for them."

Orksa made a sweeping gesture with her claw, "That's clothing, not clan coloring."

A razzing sound came from Obb that the translator put in brackets: [dismissive noise].

"What did you want from me?" Peter asked, trying to drag the conversation back on track and off of weird alien discussions about clothes.

"I wished to see the being who replaced me in my husband's breeding pool."

Peter choked, "What?"

Obb folded his arms huffily over his chest, "_Ex_-husband."

"What?" Peter repeated faintly. 

"I laid many eggs with him," Orksa said contentedly, ears flicking dreamily.

"That didn't hatch because they weren't fertile," Obb snapped.

"Only because you spaced them," Orksa clarified without any indication of grief for her lost offspring. 

"Your species isn't compatible with theirs!" Obb looked fit to burst with exasperation. 

"Obb is a jealous bull," Orksa confided to Peter as if Obb wasn't even there, "He worries that speaking to you will inspire me to return to my previous husband."

Obb covered his face with his four fingered hands, "By the six stones! Don't just tell everyone!"

"If you didn't want to hear mares gossip, then you shouldn't be on this call," Orksa chided her partner gently before turning her attention back to Peter.

Peter wasn't sure he could handle all the implications of this call. "Are you talking about Wade? He never mentioned ... uh .. a space wife." That seemed diplomatic enough.

"You are very small. Perhaps he did not want you to feel inadequate." Feathery appendages spread behind Orksa in a multicolored crown that made Peter think of peacocks. This was a sentient hippo peacock and Wade had apparently married it and had managed to fuck it. Where was the vacuum of space when Peter really needed to throw himself into it? "Can you even spawn healthy eggs?"

"We don't lay eggs!"

"Ah, hiskflukte!" The translator seemed to struggle, holding "overly polite yet derogatory term for mammals?" in its brackets. "How difficult to carry your offspring in such tiny bodies. You do not seem strong enough for the task."

"Your boyfriend is smaller than me," Peter pointed at Obb in an effort to redirect the conversation onto someone else's inadequacies.

"Bulls are meant to be small and delicate," Orksa was like the ultimate space mean girl. Obb was anything but delicate, in Peter's opinion ... but compared to Orksa he was an alien waif. "They distinguish themselves with brave deeds."

"Oi!" No matter Obb's opinion of his own waif-dom, he apparently felt that not everyone needed to know he was delicate.

"Wade is very brave, if not very delicate. He would have fine daughters ... but perhaps undesirable sons."

"Aw, c'mon, Orksa, don't be mean," Obb patted her arm. Killing his rival's offspring was okay in his book, but insulting them was beyond the pale. The morals of aliens was deeply askew. 

Peter glanced at the techs, hoping he could fake a comm failure to get out of this conversation. Unfortunately, the techs wore expressions of such glee that he knew they would be absolutely no help at all. This felt more and more like a SHIELD trap meant to embarrass and then blackmail him. Well, sucks to be them, he was totally used to be being embarrassed!

Peter folded his arms across his chest, affected boredom, and channeled the spirit of Felicia Hardy as hard as he possibly could. "Well, you've seen me. It was some kind of pleasure to meet you, I'm sure. I'll tell Wade his useless and infertile ex-wife said hello."

Orksa's ears flicked back and all four of her eyes glittered. Obb whistled lowly.

Orksa yawned, as wide as any hippo in a zoo, showing a healthy set of massive blunt teeth and a disturbingly flexible tongue. 

Obb spoke hurriedly, "Wade is our kin by marriage. Can't help it, you understand. So -- "

"Should you distress him." Orksa's jaws snapped shut, "We will burn your city off the face of this pitiful, primitive rock."

Peter felt the bottom drop out of his stomach and he wheezed for air.

"You have, what? Six billion beings on the planet? Losing nine million won't even count as an act of war," Obb had a very different idea of what counted as a act of war.

Silence filled the comm room, broken only by the beeping of equipment.

"How about I just find you and let you break me in half," Peter said finally into the grim, oppressive silence.

For the first time, Orksa looked to Obb as if seeking his opinion. Obb blinked his one eye. 

"That is acceptable," she agreed.

"Not as fun as making craters, but it'll do," Obb added, "It's not like I like the guy _that_ much."

"I'll tell Wade you said hello and threatened my life," Peter managed to say lightly, relieved that mass destruction had been averted. He gestured at the techs to cut this call _right now_. Thankfully, this time they busily fiddled with the controls and the pair in front of him started losing visual cohesion.

"Bye!" Obb waved before their images winked out.

Everyone in the room heaved a sigh of relief. Peter sagged, glad to finally escape the conversation with Wade's homicidal ex-wife.

"Is the threat credible?" Fury barked out from behind them. The techs nearly jumped a mile. Peter dropped sheepishly from the ceiling, where his startlement had sent him.

Jeff hastily tabbed through something on his screen, "Sir! Their file says they're a towing crew." 

"Hmmm," Fury stared pensively at the projection platform, "If they make a planetary approach, we'll respond." He turned in a swirl of black leather and strode away, "Keep me informed!"

"Sir! Yes, sir!"

Peter hopped off the platform, feeling relieved all over again. If he had ruined this, then Fury would have raked him over the coals. Instead, the paranoid old spy was letting them all off the hook. "What I want to know is: How did they even _know_?"

"Oh, that. It's in the _Daily Bugle_," Ed pointed out, "Everyone probably knows by now."

"They're from _space_!"

"Nothing faster than gossip," Ed shrugged, "and SWORD loves to gossip. It's the only thing they're cleared to share."

"Oh my god."

* * *

SPIDER-MAN'S SEX LIFE INVITES ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT

"What is your problem with me, lady?!" 

So storming into the _Daily Bugle_ through an open window, sticking Jameson to a wall and gagging him with a web when he started yelling, and then waving the offending paper in the face of the lady who was sitting at the desk with the nameplate of "Irene Merryweather" was probably a bit of an overreaction, but he was getting real tired of attacks that seemed to know every dirty little secret that Peter would have rather kept to himself. What was she? Some kind of paparazzi mutant?!

Irene looked at him and then at Jameson, who chewed furiously at the gag in his mouth in a single minded attempt to yell at Spider-Man again. "Nothing, really," she said finally, "You're not the kind of news I care about. A super fighting petty crime is practically filler. That's like announcing every time a cop catches someone speeding."

The wind abruptly left Peter's sails and dropped him into the doldrums of confusion. He had thought this was at least a personal vendetta of some kind. Some sort of plan involving revenge through the news. Peter huffed. It wasn't as though he was doing what he did because he wanted acknowledgement or fame or fortune. At most, he just wanted the Bugle to stop vilifying him. If they never wrote about him again, that would be fine. He waved the paper in the air again, "Then why this?"

"You're more popular than Deadpool and well liked. Your word is worth more. People will always take your side over his." Irene pressed her glasses up her nose. The light caught on them and they glinted ominously. "However, the pen is mightier than the sword and with it I'll level your playing field."

"What?" Peter felt like this was becoming his new favorite word as the number of random encounters he had that mentioned Wade continued to go up. 

"A reputation made by the press can be broken by the press. A lesson Cable had to learn the hard way. I hope that you will be wiser than him."

"You know them." Peter kept getting caught in the expanding web of connections that he didn't even know that Wade _had_.

Irene nodded, "I was the press secretary of Providence."

"Providence is gone," Peter said pointedly, "and at least part of it was Cable's fault. He cost you your home and job."

"This has nothing to do with Cable," Irene folded her hands in front of her, "During the evacuation, Deadpool stood between me and Sabretooth and fought that maniac to a standstill so I could escape. He wasn't even supposed to be there." She sighed ruefully, "I was never nice to him, but he stood by me when I needed someone to."

"Oh," Peter deflated. Gratitude for a rescue was hardly something Peter could get on his high horse about.

"I owe him a debt and I'll repay it, Spider-Man."

"I'm not using him, yanno," he offered cautiously, willing to make peace with her since she wasn't actually his enemy 

"Then you'll be the first."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nick Fury is MCU Nick Fury just because.
> 
> The chapter title is a play off the soap opera in the Transformers cartoon: _As the Kitchen Sinks_
> 
> The helicarrier in the movies has no name, but I have given it the name the _USS Victory_ after the Decepticon ship that was built in the ocean after the crash of the _Nemesis_. 
> 
> Six stones = Infinity Stones, because why wouldn't people swear by them?
> 
> Orksa and Obb have almost no development around them being aliens. I love aliens being _alien_, so I have randomly developed Orksa and Obb for the sake of that love. Orksa also has the distinction of being Wade's only canon wife prior to _Deadpool_ v3 (where retcon made up a bunch of others for the LOL). I love Orksa and Wade's marriage. That hussy Shiklah has nothing on Orksa!


	7. Mr. Whiskers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan Summers is a good bro, but he is also a manipulative shit.

"Jeez, Nate, you're really letting yourself go," Wade grinned, reaching up to poke at Nathan's face, prodding at the stubble that was now past artfully scruffy. "Or did one of the kids steal your razor? Ooo! Ooo! I bet it was a dare."

Nathan rolled his eyes so hard they might have flown out of his head. "The world isn't going to end just because I'm not in the mood to shave."

"How do you have so much hair already? You were only here like ... hmmm ... three? Three! days ago," Wade asked, twisting around so he could rub his knuckles all along Nathan's jawline, openly fascinated. "I have _four_, four whole hairs!, and I have to coax them along," he huffed and then grinned, "while you're like a puffy white whisker bush, _Mr. Whiskers_." 

"Are you going to grope my face all afternoon?" Nathan asked, _sounding_ grumpy, but the way his eyelids drooped lazily with contentment made Peter think he was _just fine_ with Wade climbing all over him.

"It's just so prickly!" Wade chirped, petting Nathan's cheeks. Nathan smacked his arm lightly to indicate he wanted him gone, but Nathan being grumpy just seemed to encourage Wade to further antics. "Grow it out, pretty please? One of us should be nice and soft and fluffy."

"I'm shaving it tomorrow."

"Noooooooooo! You can't!" Wade threw his arms around Nathan's head and hung on while Nathan punched him in the side, "I need my own Santa Claus!"

"You jackass," Nathan grumped, muffled by Wade's arms, as he shoved at Wade and then gave up, settling his arms around Wade's waist.

Wade rubbed his cheek against Nathan's fluffy white hair, "I like Priscilla better anyway, Blue Eyes White Dragon."

"You two seem cozy," Peter decided it was high time he interrupted, getting annoyed that they hadn't noticed him _standing right there_.

"Heeeeeyy, bae!" Wade perked up, straightening ... but he didn't move from his place in Nathan's lap, "Tell Nate he's not allowed to shave. It's the law!"

Nathan looked at him out of the circle of Wade's arms and _smiled_. A slow, _smug_, and victorious smile as he stared Peter dead in the eye. He knew exactly what he was doing, didn't he? He had _planned_ it. This _asshole_.

"Why are you always here again?" Peter snapped, seeing red, "Don't you have your own place to crash?"

"He's not always here," Wade snapped back, arms tightening around Nathan protectively. The pleased smile curling Nathan's lips widened. "He's barely here! I hardly ever get to see him!"

Nathan turned his head, the smile smoothing into sympathetic seriousness as he gently rubbed Wade's back with a broad palm. "Wade," his voice was a soothing rumble, soft and conciliatory, "It's alright. I'll head out and you two can -- "

"No!" Wade shoulders lifted in anger, "It's not alright!" He pushed away from Nathan's effort to calm him, standing up and whirling to direct the full force of that anger on Peter.

Behind Wade, where it was impossible for Peter's boyfriend to see, Nathan leaned back against the couch and _smirked_ at him. That was the moment that Peter realized that Nathan didn't just _plan this_ ... he was actively _manipulating_ it. He knew Wade and he was playing him like a fiddle.

Being distracted by Nathan was the wrong thing to do when Deadpool was mad at you. Wade closed the distance between them in an instant, grabbing the front of his costume to jerk him in close. His eyes were like chips of ice, the pale blue rim the only sign of color. They did anger very well. "Just because we're fucking doesn't give you the right to tell me who I can have in my own apartment."

"Wade," Peter roughly tore Wade's hands off his costume, holding them forcefully apart by the grip he had on his wrists. Spider sense twinged as Wade bared his teeth at him and slammed his head down in a head butt that had Peter seeing stars and made Wade reel back. Peter let him go to rub his head, "Would you quit it?! Don't you see that he's just here to mess with us?"

"_Nate_ is here to visit _me_," Wade snarled, already having shaken off the blow, "It's not about you. It has nothing to do with you! You just happen to show up when he's here!"

"It has everything to do with me!" Peter shot back. Nathan leaned his head on his hand as he watched them, smiling so widely Peter thought it would crack his face in half. "He's a _mind reader_! He knows when I'm going to be here!" Nathan winked with his good eye. The audacity on him! It was infuriating. "He's not here to see you, he's here to get between us! You're just a means to an end!"

Wade surprised Peter by slapping him across the face, "Shut up," he pointed at the door, "and get out."

Peter held his cheek in shock. It stung, but not as much as the cold dismissal. Or the fact that he had been slapped instead of _punched_. Wade hit you when he wanted to hit you. He didn't hold back. If they were fighting, it was a _fight_. The slap was an _insult_.

"I'll have whoever I want in my apartment, whenever I want them," Wade continued, cold and inexorable, "This is my place, not yours. You don't get a say here. Especially when I've never even _seen_ your apartment."

Peter froze, his anger sputtering out. He didn't take Wade to his place because it was part of being Peter Parker and not part of being Spider-Man. "That isn't fair," he said, more quietly than before, "You know why I can't take you home."

Nathan's smile didn't fade, but his eyes had gone cold with disapproval. He had judged Peter again and found him wanting. 

"That's right," Wade folded his arms, unbending, "_We_ don't have a home. You have a home and I have a home. Now get out of _mine_ ... before I make you get out."

Peter got out.

* * *

As the door shut, Wade sighed, unfolding his arms and rubbing his face before he turned away from the door ... only to find Nate smiling his smuggest, most irritating smile.

"Oh, so you smile when I throw my boyfriend out for being a jerk but not when I wear a Marvel Girl costume for you," Wade put his hands on his hips and huffed.

Nate had no right to look so intrigued, "When was this?"

"When I was trying to kill you!"

Nate laughed, "I think I would have remembered you wearing that when you were trying to kill me. Instead it's just skin tight red suits and you running your smart little mouth ... and the box."

"Oh my god, shut up about the box."

"But it was so cute ... " Nate snickered.

"Not as cute as me shooting you," Wade muttered.

"Those hits just kept on coming," Nate hummed, smug, "How many times have I blown out the back of your head again?"

Wade gave a gaelic shrug as he flopped down on the couch next to Nate, "Eh, who even keeps count anymore? What's a few headshots between friends?"

"What's a few falls off the Rainbow Road?" Nate retorted.

"Next time, I'm gonna kick your ass so hard in that game that you get sent back to the future."

"Not even Spider-Man could defeat me," Nate said smugly, "so what makes you think _you_ have what it takes?"

"You outrageous jackass," Wade said wonderingly as he grinned, because of course Nate just had to beat Spidey then so he could be a smug ass about it _now_. Though not nearly as smug as when he had been _playing them_ a few minutes ago. Nate could be such a manipulative shit. Spidey had no idea what he was dealing with. His grin melted into a fond smile as he rubbed his thumb over the line of Nate's jaw, humming. "You shouldn't tease him like that. It makes him anxious. It's giving him anxiety."

Nate hummed back, eyes closing as he leaned against Wade's shoulder, pressing into Wade's touch like an oversized white haired cat. Nate didn't just look tired, he _felt_ tired. A great weight was crushing him against Wade and it was only Wade holding him up. Wade could taste it, the weight. He could feel the pressure in the air. It had been crushing Nate since he got back home and it was irritating Wade because he didn't know what it _was_. Enemy action? Mindfuckery? Plot twists? It probably didn't matter. Eventually Nate would tell him what was hurting him and then Wade could fix it, because even if Nate didn't think so, just about all of Nate's usual problems could be fixed by Wade killing someone.

"He's not prepared for you and your shitty sense of humor." 

"I live to make him jealous." Normally, Wade would take that as a joke. Except he knew that Nate hadn't actually planned out this encounter, only taken advantage of it. He hadn't shaved because ... Wade wasn't quite sure, but it was like a little alert going off in Wade's brain. Nate liked order. He liked order and neatness and things to be in their place. Chaos was war, was strife -- and Stryfe too -- was death and destruction and having to fight. When he was home, Nate shaved. He might show up at Wade's as scruffy as a bandit, but he left there cleaned up -- after looting Wade's things and complaining about how Wade kept the bathroom. That fucker. Wade left it a mess just to spite him!

... something was afoot, honestly, and not whatever game Nate was playing with Spidey. If anything, that seemed to have cheered him up considerably. He was shades of his usual busybody interfering self there. Which was why Wade was letting it play out instead of setting Nate straight. When he was messing with Spidey, the weight that was pressing, pressing, pressing Nate down lifted for a little while. It was also kinda nice that Nate was trying to make Spidey jealous. Sweet, even.

The joke was on Nate, though. He wasn't going to make Spidey jealous because Spidey didn't care enough to be jealous ... but that was why Wade loved Nate, why they were friends no matter how completely exasperating Nate could be, because Nate thought Wade deserved better, that he could be more than he was, and not even Wade repeatedly backstabbing him in a fit of pique had convinced him otherwise. 

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," Wade said, petting Nate's whiskery cheeks and wishing idly that his friend would let them get nice and fluffy. They couldn't, of course, because someone might mistake him for a homeless man and Nate was not homeless. 

"You haven't done anything about it," Nate mumbled, sleepy eyed. 

"Should I?" Wade asked, standing up. Nate straightened, giving him a wary look, but Wade just waved him off as he headed to the bathroom to get his straight razor.

"It won't kill him," Nate sounded almost grumpy that Spidey would escape his plans with all his limbs intact, "or maim him?"

"Now you sound like me when you want me to not kill somebody." The straight razor was not in his bathroom, go figure. A half empty can of shaving cream was in the bathroom cabinets, so Wade felt there was still hope for him. A brief ransacking of his bedroom revealed the razor to be in his bedside drawer. He couldn't even remember why. Wade wiped it off on the sheets just in case. He victoriously held up both as he returned to the main room. "I should sue you for copyright infringement."

"I don't sound anything like -- where have those been?"

"Not in the bathroom, so that means they're clean!"

"You are such a liar," Nate said flatly, "Those haven't been clean since they came out of the package."

"It's not like I'm going to cut you with them," Wade said virtuously, "I'll have you know that my knifework is excellent. Your sexy little white hairs won't even feel how smoothly they've been detached from your indecently chiseled face."

"I have my own razor," Nate made a face as Wade climbed onto the couch and straddled him, his thighs neatly caged by Wade's. Nate's hands settled on his hips to steady him, pulling him closer rather than pushing him off. 

"Do you?" Wade stuck the blade between his teeth as he shook the can, "Oooo donckthhh ooosss eeeht." 

"Don't talk with your mouth full." Nate said with a smirk, tipping his head back against the couch, his face tilted up for easier access. Wade snickered around the knife, pleased with the innuendo, and sprayed cream all across the white whiskery fluff on Nate's face. He tossed the can onto the couch, uncaring of the potential mess, and grabbed the straight razor.

This was the moment that always sent a shiver down Wade's spine and blood rushing to his dick. This moment of trust, where a flick of his wrist could open Nate's throat ... and all Nate did was wait, languid and trusting, as if he wasn't letting Wade -- unstable, armed and dangerous Wade -- so close to him when he was vulnerable. 

The hands on his hips slid around his waist, pulling Wade flush against him, pressing Wade's trust boner against the firm plane of Nate's stomach. Wade swayed with the movement, putting a hand against the couch beside Nate's head to brace himself and keep the knife from moving. He only ever wanted to cut Nate on purpose, never by accident. 

Nate's eyes dilated before fluttering briefly closed. Wade swallowed against the surge of desire. Nate couldn't even see him anymore, couldn't stop him with a thought if Wade proved untrustworthy, couldn't hear his intent if Wade should change his mind. That was the sort of thing that could go to a man's head or his other head. For Wade, it was definitely both heads at once. 

Despite what Wade _could_ do, what he might fantasize doing now and again when he was really mad at Nate, he would never actually break such precious, fragile trust. 

He slid his fingers into Nate's hair to press against his scalp, holding him steady as he brought the knife down. A single smooth stroke cleared a path through foam to reveal the soft, fragile skin beneath. A flick of his wrist sent the foam and hair on his blade flying. Wade pushed lightly on Nathan and his friend tilted his head without hesitation, following his silent instructions as smoothly as if he had plucked them from Wade's head instead of just divining them from a touch. Wade shifted his grip as he moved the blade across Nate's skin in stroke after stroke, falling into the rhythmic slide and flick until Nate's face was clear. 

"There," Wade murmured, dropping the razor over the arm of the couch onto the floor, "All done." He rubbed a smudge of cream off Nate's nose, "Well, except for the clean up. I should take a picture of such a pretty face," he purred.

"I look like the target of someone's inability to aim."

Wade laughed, delighted by the innuendo. He pulled Nate's shirt up and used it to wipe him off, enjoying the opportunity to take in the view of Nate's chiseled abs. Everything on Nate was chiseled. It was enough to give a man a complex. Silver threaded itself along Nate's left flank and Wade let his fingers do his walking and his talking as he ran a hand up the seam of flesh and metal. 

Nate sucked in a breath in surprise, "Wade -- "

"Looks okay," Wade cut him off, shoving Nate's metal arm up to run his hands along the coils that pretended to be flesh, counting them as he went, "Doesn't look like it's gotten worse or anything. Been hurting you more than usual?"

"Just the usual," Nate's breath huffed back out in a sigh as he smiled wryly, accepting Wade's groping with tired grace. He relaxed back against the couch, lifting his arms over his head and finished pulling off his shirt, which Wade had rucked up half over his head anyway. He tossed it aside before laying his arms along the back of the couch to give Wade free reign. "It's fine and that tickles."

Wade grinned, "Yeah?"

"That wasn't an inviTATION!" Nate yelped as Wade dug his fingers in and wriggled.

* * *

The Great Tickle War of '09 overturned the couch, made the shaving can explode, put a new hole in Wade's ceiling, and barely spared his TV from destruction when the entertainment system flipped over. 

In the new circle of devastation that was Wade's living room, Wade reached under a couch cushion and pulled out a cheeto. It was covered in dust and one end was partially dissolved, but the orange color bravely remained. Wade lifted it up to inspect it and then dangled it in front of Nathan's face from where the other man was sprawled next to him on the floor. "You want half?"

"Don't eat that," Nathan said mildly, grasping it in telekinesis rather than touching it, and flung it out the window, "It's bad for you."

"But Nate!" Wade protested, "We're going to _starve_. That was our only food ration left!"

"The fridge is full of groceries you bought last week," Nathan ignored this drama so he could pull a couch cushion far enough over to prop his head up on.

"Really? I did?" Wade lifted his head to look at the refrigerator before dropping it back onto the floor because it was just too heavy to lift, "Ugh. That's too far away. We'll never cross all that lava. Just summon some of it with your tele tecky."

Nathan mouthed 'tele tecky' at the ceiling in mock despair before he rolled to his side, [Tickle war.] Wade turned to look at him blankly. "Tickle war."

Wade grinned, "Please, I totally demolished you and you were unable to manage a counter attack. That was tickle subjugation. Hasn't anybody ever tickled you before?"

[Tickle subjugation], Nathan allowed, before snorting, "Maybe when I was _six_." Nathan contemplated the hole in the ceiling, "Think your landlord is going to be mad about the hole?"

"I'll put a bucket under it, it'll be fine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of writing process trivia: The first section of this chapter is the second thing that ever got written in this fic. The first thing that ever got written got edited out. Maybe it will return in an Omake later.


	8. A Parent's Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last person Peter expected to give him the shovel talk was Scott Summers.

Peter dropped his bookbag on the seat, carefully set down his latte, sat down, laid his head on the table and groaned a heartfelt groan. "Whatever you're going to say to me, just get it over with."

"Remember to use protection," Scott Summers said with what sounded suspiciously like sympathy from Peter's supine position. Peter rolled his head to the side to cautiously look up. Scott sipped his coffee.

Peter straightened up, "That's it? No death threats?"

Scott head tipped toward his coffee cup as he lightly swirled the contents, "Just because Wade is immune to disease doesn't mean you should be sloppy about sexual hygiene. His casual disregard for health and safety can still affect you. Have you ever heard about the time that Logan -- "

"Oh my god, please stop," Peter begged, covering his ears. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Wolverine's sexual exploits. He already had to deal with the after affects of Wolverine's inability to keep it in his pants in the form of his bratty emo kid.

"What? You mean you don't want to hear about the time that Hank -- "

"La la la I'm not listening!" Peter sang determinedly.

Scott smirked as he took another sip. It reminded Peter disturbingly of Nathan. He set his cup down. "Alright. I won't tell you all the horror stories I know."

Peter let go of his ears and leaned back against the padded booth with a sigh of relief.

"Jean would have made you listen even if she had to force it into your head." Peter looked unobtrusively for an exit. The only thing worse than the stories of the sexual exploits of his peers were stories about Jean Gray. Scott shrugged, "Thankfully she isn't here and Nathan can't wind her around his little finger."

Peter abruptly refocused on Scott because, "Wait. What?"

"She always gives him what he wants because she feels guilty that she's not his mother and her influence on me was at least partially responsible for him losing his real mother."

Peter's mouth dropped open in pure shock. He had never heard another male ever speak a single mildly critical word about Jean Gray. He pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming and flinched when it hurt. So definitely not a dream then.

"You'll catch flies that way," Scott said, maddeningly calm, like he hadn't just been implying that Jean Gray was less than a perfect goddess. "The thing you have to remember is that Nathan loses all perspective where Wade is concerned."

"I don't understand what any of that has to do with you giving me the shovel talk," Peter said slowly and with great caution. The sudden addition of Jean Gray to the conversation and now this segue had thrown him off balance. 

Scott apparently realized that he had lost Peter at the conversational pass. He folded his arms on the table as he backtracked. "Nathan and Wade have been friends for some time now. Very, very close friends."

"I got that impression," Peter muttered.

"Nathan is irrational about Wade. He turns a blind eye to his behavior. He always has to know where Wade is at all times. He has often arranged things so the only employer Wade has is him. If Wade's attention wanders, he manipulates people and events to bring them back together."

"Well ... that's stalkerish of him."

Scott gave a gaelic shrug. Peter supposed that living with Wolverine and the Professor while being married to Jean Gray and fighting the likes of Mr. Sinister had inured him to possessive stalkers.

"The only reason you haven't run into Nathan before now is because he was traveling through time with Hope."

"If Nathan is so fixated on Wade, why doesn't he take him with him when he leaves?"

Scott tapped the table thoughtfully with a finger, "That's an interesting question with a strange answer. In the multiverse, there aren't many Wades. Because of his rarity, he's an anchor that marks out this time and place. As long as he stays in place, Nathan always knows where here actually is because he's just following the thread back to Wade."

"So Wade stays home so Nathan always knows where home is," Peter concluded. 

Scott nodded in agreement with his summary.

Peter groaned and buried his face in his hands, "Because that's not romantic at all."

"Now you're starting to see the problem," Scott said sympathetically, "This isn't a one way connection. Wade prioritizes Nathan above everything and everyone. Between joining the X-Men and joining Nathan, he chose Nathan. Between money and Nathan, he chose Nathan. Between you and Nathan, it is very likely that Wade will choose Nathan."

"Except Wade's been with me this whole time, despite everything," Peter ran his hands through his hair, fluffing it out, before dropping them onto the table. Even after these last few weeks of Nathan dropping in and out of their life, Wade was still with him instead of his so called best friend. "There's been a dumbfounding amount of shovel talks, sure, but that's nothing."

"The only reason any of them even gave you the shovel talk is because of Nathan. He's the one who let everyone know about your relationship."

"Why that insufferable jackass!" Peter had been wondering why all of a sudden everyone had known about him! He had thought it had been Siryn who had spilled the beans to all her X friends, but all this time is had been Nathan!

"I understand you've been taking advantage of the mentally ill, Peter."

"What, that's not -- "

"The only reason Wade Wilson, the Merc with a Mouth, would keep quiet about fucking Spider-Man is if he was _made_ to keep quiet. What's Spider-Man doing? Blackmailing someone who's not in a position to say no to him because no one would believe him?"

"Hey now, that isn't how -- "

"A dirty little secret Spider-Man's been keeping hush hush about. Why else would it even _be_ a secret? Everyone knows Wade is an easy lay. Must be a guilty conscious ... and since there's no reason to be guilty about the sex, then something _else_ must be going on."

"Oh my god," Peter said, appalled, "Is that what he's been saying?"

Scott nodded. "Maybe no one _really_ believes it ... but maybe they _do_ believe something must be going on, that something _has_ to be going on if _you_ of all people are actually fucking Deadpool. So they show up to give you the shovel talk and get the lay of the land and maybe even rack up a favor with Cable, because those are the kinds of favors that could be very, very useful."

Peter could only stare at Scott in dumbfounded horror.

"I'm letting you know because I like you, Peter, and I don't care who you sleep with," Scott said kindly, "but I like to see my son happy even more and if giving you the shovel talk makes him happy ... " he trailed off with a shrug. 

" ... but breaking up me and Wade will make him happier," Peter said faintly.

"It would," Scott agreed. "So you can see why it's for the best that Jean isn't with us," he continued calmly, "otherwise she might do something rash that we'd all come to regret."

"Oh my god," Peter repeated, horrified all over again as he stared at Scott. 

This really was a shovel talk. It was more than shovel talk. It was a dire warning that he better watch his back, because Scott Summers would put a laser in it in a heartbeat if it made Nathan Summers happy.

* * *

"Damn, Slim," Logan took the cigar out of his mouth to trail his eyes up and down Scott as the taller man stepped outside, pulling his coat on.

"You heard all that?" Scott asked mildly, checking to make sure his glasses were in their proper place. He had selected a busy establishment in an effort to avoid eavesdroppers like Logan.

"Remind me to never get on yer bad side," Logan looked back through the doors at skinny little Peter Parker, who was chugging his latte like his life depended on it.

"You're always on my bad side, Logan."

"Mebbe I should get in there and give it to him straight. He's like a poor innocent lamb."

"And kick him when he's down?" Scott said gently, "It's not like he _intended_ to get in Nathan's bad books."

Logan grunted, "Wade's a bad influence on yer boy."

"On the contrary, Wade is an excellent influence. Nathan has been _much_ improved since he's started visiting Wade and plotting how to give Peter hell." It was better than the near ghost that Nathan had been before. Quiet and withdrawn and pale, staying in the guest room he had always hated, making grim and terrible plans with X-Force, running into the future again and again and again in an attempt to change something that could not be changed. Scott was glad that Domino had finally thrown her hands up and blabbed that Wade was doing the dirty with _someone_. 

Breaking up Peter and Wade had been giving Nathan something to do besides brood. It might be a different kind of unhealthy, but Scott would accept this alternative to the one that came before. Wade was a simple man. He would just punch Nathan in the face when he had enough of his nonsense. 

"Nathan's been a _jackass_," Logan snorted, "He's like a fifteen year old girl who caught her crush and her best friend kissin' behind the sports shed."

"Hell hath no fury," Scott agreed. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped out to join the rest of the foot traffic, trusting that Logan would follow him instead of giving Peter his own shovel talk.

Logan only hesitated for a second before abandoning his post outside the coffee shop and falling into step beside Scott. "Why haven't ya said anything to yer boy?"

"I have ... but Hope's dead and nothing will bring her back," Scott said quietly, knowing that Logan's sharp ears could still hear him, even if he whispered. "Nathan's already tried. You know that he has."

Logan grunted.

"So what's there to tell him? That I'm sorry? That I miss her too? That he shouldn't blame himself? He blames himself no matter what I say. I don't have any other levers left to pull to help him."

"Didn't think ya approved of them hangin' out at all."

"I don't have to approve," Scott shrugged, "I'm just not standing in the way."

Logan puffed on his cigar in silence as they walked. "I'll give him the talk later. Take him for a beer, break it to him gentle like."

Scott smiled, "Wade'll never believe you did it."

"That's why I gotta do it," Logan said contentedly, "Keep him on his toes. Nathan's made him soft." 

Scott chuckled and his scent mellowed. Logan ground out the butt of cigar on his belt buckle before tossing the stub into a passing trashcan. He lit another. Scott might smell pleasant -- he wore only the mildest of colognes in respect for his colleagues sensitive noses, more infused alcohols rather than the sharp chemical cocktails that were common and popular -- but the rest of the city stank. 

"There's still hope. Jean came back."

"Jean should just stay dead," Scott said sharply.

"You don't mean that," Logan muttered gruffly. He'd meant it to be a comfort, not the start of a fight.

"Yes, I _do_," Scott's mouth flattered into a sharp line, "I'm tired of it. I'm tired of living in limbo, waiting for the off chance that she'll come back to me. I'm sick and tired of being _on hold_. I want to move forward instead of always being dragged _back_."

"Slim ... "

"I'm not going to live forever, Logan. I'm not you. I can't keep waiting around for maybe, for people who keep dying and _leaving me_ and expecting me to be waiting for them to come back. If they didn't want me to _move on_, then they shouldn't have _died_!" 

"Scott," Logan grabbed Scott's wrist as he stopped, dragging the taller man to an abrupt halt. Scott whirled around, twisting in his grip like he might hit Logan, but Logan caught his other wrist before he could complete the motion. 

"Let me go," Scott snapped, shoulders stiffening in anger at the entrapment, pulling on Logan's grip. 

Logan could already tell that Scott would claw his way free even if it took an all out brawl on this street to do it. He didn't want to fight him. What he said, it hurt, unexpectedly stinging him where he was soft ... and worse, it felt like Scott was giving up, giving up on Jean and loving her, breaking free of the tangled snarl that was the three of them, leaving Logan behind.

... and Logan couldn't bear to let him. If Scott wasn't tied to Jean, then he was tied to Logan not at all. The emotional bond between them was all jealousy and grief with Jean at the heart ... what would it become without her?

"Mebbe ... you should think of datin' someone who can't die," he said gruffly, loosening his grip, sliding his hands from Scott's wrists to cup his hands instead.

Scott twitched, almost tugging his hands free before he subsided into tense silence, his glasses obscuring his expression if not the tangled confusion of his scent, still burning with sharp edged anger and grief.

"Someone like you?"

"Yeah, someone like me," Logan agreed, on the edge of a unexpected precipice. 

"Logan, you drop off the face of the earth and disappear _all the time_."

Logan was not deterred by the sharp thrust of that point, "No reason to go out somewhere else if I'm getting laid _here_."

"You hate commitment."

"Naw, just never actually had it. Not like Jean was my girl, was she?"

"I didn't think you liked guys," Scott said finally and with it Logan could almost smell him wavering on the same unexpected precipice.

"I might change my mind after a couple of beers and thou," Logan offered.

"How could I possibly turn down such a romantic offer?" Scott's response was dry as dust before he sighed and shook his head. "This sounds like the kind of experiment that will only end in hurt feelings and miscommunication. We ... " he hesitated, reaching up to check if his glasses were secure in a nervous motion that Logan rarely saw, " ... I think we're friendly enough now. We can work together. This could ruin that completely."

"It doesn't have to," he said gamely, "I'll tell it to ya straight and it ain't like I can't smell you."

Scott wrinkled his nose, "Smelling me is not the same as knowing what I think about it."

"I think I'm going to be able to tell if you like it," Logan said rather smugly.

"If you hit my prostrate often enough, I'm going to like it," Scott said, drier than the Sahara, "Same if I fuck your tight lubed up ass. _Liking it_ isn't going to be the problem. What I feel _after_ I've liked it is going to be the problem."

Logan snorted, caught between enjoyment and sursprised disbelief at the sudden blunt assessment of the situation. "This is why you teach sex ed."

"I teach sex ed because my students spend one hour squirming in embarrassed silence, afraid to ask me any questions because I might actually answer them," Scott sniffed, lips turning up in that smug self satisfaction that was annoying under any other circumstances. "That class is my one hour of pure joy every year. I'm not letting you take it from me."

"Yer a sadist," Logan grumped to cover the smile that threatened to sneak onto his face. He gave a small sigh, "If it gets awkward, we can just avoid each other for a couple of weeks and then get in a fight to sort it out, mebbe get drunk. It'll work out."

"The same kind of getting drunk that you want to do tonight?"

"Yeah." 

Scott sighed, "I can see the shape of your plan and it is stupid."

"That's why you make all the plans, Slim," Logan said easily, not terribly miffed that Scott had already sussed him out. Getting drunk, getting laid, getting in a fight and then starting it all over again was a perfectly good plan that just expanded their current relationship with more fighting, more drinking, and the addition of sex. It couldn't possibly fail.

" ... and this is why _you_ aren't teaching sex ed."

Logan shrugged in silent agreed. The kids managed to get themselves into all kinds of romantic pickles that they then tried to resolve with sex. They didn't need any encouragement from him. "C'mon. Gimme a kiss. If you don't like it, we won't go drinking ... unless it's just to drink."

Scott huffed a sigh that Logan might have accepted as rejection if it weren't for the way that Scott kept looking at him, just at him. He could feel the focus, the slight heat shimmer that Scott's glasses couldn't entirely disperse. "Alright."

Logan grinned, "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Scott plucked the cigar from his mouth without even a by your leave and bent over, pressing his lips sloppily to Logan's. Logan caught the back of his head, a thumb holding the line of his glasses down even as the other fingers curled in silky hair. He tilted his head to line them up more neatly and felt them slot smoothly into place with a soft jolt of lust. Scott tasted like coffee and his mildly chapped lips parted sweetly when Logan wanted them to. Scott let him explore and claim him as thoroughly as a single kiss would allow. 

Scott pulled back, automatically adjusting his glasses as he straightened, shoulders rolling to ease the tension of bending over. He looked at the cigar in his hand as if he couldn't figure out how it got there.

Logan licked his lips, still tasting him, and decided that it didn't much matter if Scott _didn't_ like it. He was going to claim him all the same ... and Jeany could kiss his furry white ass.

"Yer too tall," Logan grumbled rather than open himself up for challenge. 

Scott handed back his cigar and didn't say a single word about not liking it. Instead he volleyed smugly back, "Oh, would you like a box, then?"

"Aw, shaddup. Yer worse than yer boy."

"No one is more smug that Nathan, Logan," Scott shook his head, "no one. He was born as a distillation of smugness. We had to send him to the future to save the present."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intended for Scott to be the most lighthearted of shovel talks, here for the lolz and to tease Spidey ... and then it went to a much weirder place. You surprise me, Scott. Then Logan had to involve himself, which caused the entire second section to happen. Unexpected pairing was unexpected. I thought about cutting it out and making it a side story, but eventually decided to keep it in.
> 
> Why yes, this whole fic ... _everyone_ shovel talking Spider-Man? That was Nate. Now you know the "villain" of our story and he has one glowing eye. :D 
> 
> Who remembers Wade's phone call from chapter 1? Why did Domino suddenly decide to call Wade? Or how about Blind Al's phone call in chapter 2? How did she have Peter's phone number? In chapter 4, Siryn all of a sudden gets the gossip from a women she isn't on good terms with? A _telepath_, no less. Irene in chapter 6? Why is she suddenly writing for the _Daily Bugle_ after Nate's reading the paper in Chapter 5? XD That was all Nate.


	9. A Burden Shared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Logan have some beers and talk about their romantic troubles.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't just turn around and leave right now," Peter said flatly the moment he saw Logan waiting for him at the counter.

"I'll tell the barman yer underage if ya leave."

Peter slumped into the seat next to the shorter mutant with a heartfelt groan that spoke not just of resignation, but exhausted exasperation. He liked this place. They accepted his fake ID without much question when paired with his college ID. This was a place he could both unwind _and_ study and here was Logan showing up to ruin everything for him. He hooked his bookbag under the counter and sagged tiredly onto his elbows. "You know that Wade is tougher than he looks, right? I can't _imagine_ ever being able to hurt him."

"That boy is a grasshopper. He lives in the moment. Gives him elasticity. Ya can't help but hurt him because one day you'll die, you'll grow old, you'll get hurt. That day is comin' and he _knows_ it. I care if ya hurt him _now_, use him just to get yer rocks off ... because if ya _do_," Logan held up his fist and his claws slid out slowly, angled in Peter's direction, "I'm comin' for ya."

"Put those away or I'll throw you out of here!" The bartender snapped, reaching under the bar pointedly.

Logan grunted and retracted his claws, "Aw, shaddup! This joker is datin' my kid!"

Appeased by Logan's compliance, the bartender nodded, narrowed his eyes briefly at Peter, and then turned pointedly away to attend to other customers.

Peter was miffed that the bartender had so swiftly abandoned him. He hissed at Logan, "He's not your kid!" Then he paused, "Oh, god, please don't let him be your kid!"

Logan snorted, "Naw, but they made him tryin' to copy me and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and nightmares."

Well, that was a relief ... sort of. "Nathan put you up to this," Peter said, resigned.

"He might have mentioned it," Logan shrugged. "Ya got more than just an enemy there, ya understand?"

"He's also competition," Peter said bitterly, "I've noticed. They're like _this_." Peter crossed his fingers to indicate closeness, "but worse."

Logan accepted the beers the bartender slid him and nudged one in front of Peter.

"There's all this _touching_ and injoking and eating," Peter took a great draft of his drink before banging it down and clutching his head with both hands. "Wade keeps cooking him _food_! Like _real_ food and not just take-out! He made hot chocolate in a pot! There were _vegetables_ on the counter the other week and they were just standing there making dinner and talking like ... like ... like my aunt and uncle!"

Logan made a grunting sound of agreement as everything spilled out of Peter in a messy rush.

"They just stop talking sometimes and lean against each other and get _weird_."

"Telepathy," Logan interjected sagely.

"Can they even read regenerating stabby people?"

Logan huffed, "Sure. We're people too. Well, mebbe not Wade. Something about how it works for him up here," Logan tapped his forehead, "drives the whole lot of them nuts. Can't stand havin' him around when they can't see him comin'. Nathan seems to like it. Might just be rebelling against his folks, though, pickin' out the most unsavory person to hang out with that he could find."

Peter laid his head on the counter and groaned, "It gets _worse_."

"Hmmmm."

"Don't hmmmm me!" Peter said annoyed. He picked up his head to glower at Logan and then at his beer, downing it. Logan gestured to the barkeep to get him another. The barkeep, knowing his business, silently provided it. "Yesterday, I was at his apartment and the place was _wrecked_. I thought someone had broken in ... but no! They're just fighting and then Nathan comes right out and says that Wade was trying to give him a blow job."

Logan coughed to hide his laughter, "No!"

"Yes! And Wade doesn't even deny it! He's all 'they're suffocating in there!' and Nathan is all 'they don't need CPR' and I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or scream! Like, the balls on them!"

Logan gave up on not laughing. He laughed until he cried.

Peter's lips lifted into a smile in spite of himself, "Okay, it was a little funny ... but I swear it just never ends."

Logan swiped the water from the corner of his eyes as his chortles died down, "I wish Slim had walked in on that."

Now Peter had to grin in earnest, spirits lifting when he imagined someone else going through what he was going through right now, "That's just mean."

"Can ya imagine?" Logan smirked conspiratorially, "If Jean was there to? She'd be fit to be tied. Wouldn't know whether to spit or go blind."

Peter gasped, "Logan!"

"Might as well go whole hog," Logan shrugged, "I'm gonna be on her shit list anyway if she ever comes back."

"Why? What'd you do?"

"I stole the march on her. I put the moves on Slim," Logan said with such contentment that Peter thought he had fatalistically accepted his own demise, "and I intend to keep him and not share him. So she'll be pissed."

Peter whistled low before taking a long swig of his drink.

"Telepaths are bad enemies to make," Logan said mildly, "They're possessive. Always like to claim they're not, the way they meddle, but every one of them can't help themselves."

Peter gloomily acknowledged that this matched his own experiences so far, "So how are you gonna keep Jean off your back?"

"Well, I've got a favor owed me, now don't I?" Logan said slyly, "Wade'll be tickled I gave you the talk ... so Nathan'll have to be in my corner when I tell her to go fuck herself."

"I hate you," Peter glared at him before waving his arm in a sweeping gesture, "But you see, it's things like that! There's all this stuff between them!"

"They've known each other a long time," Logan agreed, "There's _history_."

"I think I'm going to end up breaking up with him," Peter said miserably, gripping the drink in front of him tightly.

Logan put a hand on his shoulder and gripped it gently, "Yeah, kid, you probably are. Drink up. This next one's on me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I deleted chapter 9 and this chapter moved up to take its place. Chapter 9 will return in the Omake.


	10. His Brother's Keeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade and Nate are terrible at talking, but they're great at beating each other up.

Wade's beaming face greeted Nathan at the door, just a fraction too quick to be anything except his eerie premonition, "Hey, Nate!"

Nathan stepped inside, letting the door shut behind him before he gave in to the impulse of his heart. He reached out to cup the back of Wade's head as he leaned in, touching forehead to forehead, wrapping the smaller man in a hug. His shields dropped so he could press his mind to Wade's, the cold, still waters of silence like a balm, an intense relief from the demanding clamor of the city. 

Nathan felt like he had traveled across an endless desert to reach an oasis instead of just taking the subway to Wade's apartment. 

"Hello, handsome," Nathan murmured in the hushed space between them.

"You need your eyes examined. Again. And stop hugging me, you putz," Wade complained just to complain, looping an arm around Nathan's shoulders when Nathan failed to let go, hugging him back. "I'm going to come over all girly. My manhood is seeping out of me here. My dick is going to become a cocoon, turn into a butterfly, and fly away." 

Nathan just nudged Wade's nose with his own, not letting go, in no mood to ever let go, "That should make it easier to kick your ass today, dickless wonder."

"Excuse you! Nothing will make me so slow that I can't beat you like a drum. Unless you're going to cheat with telekinesis like a big fat cheater McCheaterson who cheats all the time with his cheat bag full of cheats." Wade's fingers flexed in his hair, tugging in annoyance before they guiltily petted the ruffled locks smooth, and then gave them a yank again because no, they did not feel guilty at all!

Nathan laughed, feeling his tension fall away. Wade's mind swirled against his like formless mist, tasting like lemons and light bursting out of dark water. It was beautifully, intoxicatingly quiet in his head even if his ears were filled with Wade's chatter.

"I'm on to you! Don't think I can't tell!"

Nathan hummed, breathing him in. Instead of the familiar scents of smoke, gun oil, coppery blood, and molting flesh, Wade smelled like cooking oil and cumin. It made Nathan think that he might have actually bothered to clean up for Nathan's visit ... or for that _homewrecker_.

"What is _up_ with you lately?" Wade frowned when Nathan's grip tightened, "You're clingy."

"Am I?"

Wade snorted. "You want to talk about it?" his voice dropped to a hushed rasping register, a voice for private discussions that no one wanted overheard.

Nathan shuddered, pulling back from Wade and ignoring the disappointment that passed across his friend's expressive face. "I'd rather just spar." He drew his shields back up like armor, even if he held them more loosely than normal.

Wade made a face at him, but slapped him on the shoulder in agreement, "Fine then. You'll regret challenging me, old man."

"I never regret making you beg for mercy, Wade."

* * *

"We could just spar bare handed, yanno," Wade said as he kicked the door open to the roof, a sword in each hand. The wind carried the sound of traffic to them, but the minds of everyone around them was distant, muffled, as Wade drew silence over himself like a cloak. Nathan could punch through the obscuring veil if he focused, could overwhelm Wade's unconscious projections with his own strength, but then he wouldn't be able to enjoy it. 

This silent, inscrutable buffer field radiated from Wade ever since their merger. What had been mixed could never truly be unmixed. They had taken pieces from each other. Nathan was stronger than he used to be, harder to tire, quicker to heal. The techno virus had been quiescent, hibernating rather than ever seeking to devour him. Wade had been hard to read before, but Nathan had it on good authority that he was now the only telepath who could figure out Wade was even there. He also had a hell of a mental punch if Nathan so much as brushed him with telekinesis.

Nathan followed him out, closing the door more gently than it had been opened, "I thought you wanted this to be a fair fight." 

"What? You think fighting _me_ with a sword is going to be _fair_?" Wade whirled around, annoyed at the pot shot cast upon his hand to hand technique. He shoved one of the swords at Nathan. 

Nathan took it automatically, inspecting it and the sword that Wade had kept. Both swords were chipped, the steel scored and pitted from clashes with other weapons. The one in Nathan's hands had lost a chunk along one side where the blade thinned to an edge. 

"Fine. Take the prettier one for yourself, Wade," Nathan said lightly to tease him. Both swords were good enough to practice with since they were no longer fit for the field. 

"That's not it," Wade lifted his sword and held it straight in front of his eyes, sighting along the blade from the hilt. "This one has a fault in the steel. Hit it hard enough or at the right spot and it'll shatter."

Nathan walked around to look, dropping a hand on Wade's shoulder as he bent over to get on the same eye level as Wade. He couldn't see what Wade saw, but a pulse of telekinesis along the blade did give him a sense that it was not uniformly forged. "How can you tell?"

Wade chopped downward with the sword, sweeping it through the air in a sharp swish. "It sounds wrong. The vibration is off."

"The other one will be unbalanced," Nathan straightened, still looking over Wade's shoulder as he idly rubbed the back of Wade's neck with his thumb, tracing the indents of his spine. 

"They're both unbalanced," Wade agreed, "just unbalanced differently. It just doesn't matter if I shatter it, since you're always shielding. If it shatters before I get a kill strike, you can say you win." He turned his head to flash Nathan a grin, reaching back to cover the hand on his shoulder with one of his own, searching Nathan's eyes. 

"What?" Wade had unique eyes. Just like his skin had been swept with the tidal forces of decay and regeneration, his eyes had been frozen into a living death. White frosted the entire eye, sweeping away the color. All the detail was still there, for anyone who cared to look and Nathan enjoyed looking, picking out the pale blue rim of his iris and the soft blue threading that lead down to the faded gray of his pupil. 

Wade twisted out of his grip, holding his hand as he stepped back and swung the sword up to point at Nathan's nose. "The sword's not the only thing that sounds wrong."

Nathan squeezed his hand in silent reply before dropping it. He switched the blade into his dominant hand and held it vertically in the starting pose, "En garde."

Wade accepted Nathan dodging him, dropping his blade to the the opposite hip, 'sheathing' it without doing so. "Do you only know the fencing form? Is that why you're such shit with a sword? No wonder you have to use a spear."

"Do you only know how to run your mouth?" Nathan volleyed back, dropping the point of his sword, aiming at Wade. He bad barely even thrust before Wade lunged forward, unsheathing the sword in a single swift motion and slicing through the path that Nathan would have to traverse. Nathan abandoned the thrust to block, their blades sliding along each other and would have caught on the jagged edge of Nathan's if Wade hadn't twisted his off path and hopped back. 

They exchanged a furious series of blows, testing the weapons more than each other. The broken edges of Nathan's sword made it a surprisingly good swordbreaker, ideal for catching and twisting Wade's blade if only Wade were a lesser swordsman. Wade kept deflecting the blows along the flat of his blade to prevent not only that, but also the kind of sharp strike that would shatter it.

"I didn't think you even knew how to block," Nathan verbally probed, pressing the advantage of his reach as he thrust for Wade's face.

"The deflection form is the third form," Wade snorted as he twisted Nathan's blade aside and returned to his center of gravity, sword pointed backwards and held parallel to the ground as if it were a knife and not a sword, "and I know it just fine."

"If only you would use it instead of getting killed at the worst possible moment." 

"Oi! I'm not used to having to watch your stupid self sacrificing back!"

"Get used to it!" Nathan leapt back from Wade's slashing attack, but Wade didn't give him time to recenter as the slash wove into a thrust and then Wade dropped under his answering swipe, falling into a crouch and sweeping a leg out to trip him. With the aid of telekinesis, Nathan hopped backwards over the sweep and out of range. "You'll never be team material if you keep leaving holes in their defenses."

"I'm not team material because no one wants me on their team!" Wade snapped, turning with his sweep, using the momentum to propel him into a low lunging thrust that crossed the distance between them. 

"No, it's because you're _sloppy_ ... because you _can_ be sloppy." Nathan twisted, side stepping as he swung his blade low to deflect Wade's strike away from him. Seeing an opportunity, he slapped Wade across the ass with his free hand, shoving. Wade stumbled in surprise and whirled around, slicing across where Nathan's throat would have been. Nathan swayed backwards with a goading, obnoxious grin, knocking the angry blow aside. "Then there's the sloppy seconds," he teased. 

"At least I'm having _fun_ when I'm running around _by myself_," Wade retorted, following him relentlessly with a series of sharp piercing thrusts at his center mass. Nathan knew he had gotten under Wade's skin, but he wanted to drive the point home. He needed Wade to think about adapting himself to being by Nathan's side again, to improving his reliability in combat. If they were ever going to be a team once more, they had to watch each other's backs.

"Is it fun to fail because you let things get through your guard?" It might be cruel to press the point, but Nathan needed Wade to hear him. "How many people have you let down?"

"Shut up!" Wade snarled, abandoning his thrusting attacks for a weaving slash, "I'm not a hero! I'm a mercenary!"

"How many jobs are you losing because you just can't keep out of the way of bullets?" Open to the building residents, the roof was anything but clean. It was simple to find a bottle among the scattered debris and fling it at Wade with a single tug of telekinesis. It slammed into Wade's shoulder, throwing off his slash, letting Nathan simply step out of the way of the blow.

"Ow!" Wade whirled to keep Nathan in his sights, "You damn cheater!"

Nathan waved a negligent hand and made every piece of unsecured debris on the rooftop hurtle straight for Wade, "Everything's fair in love and war." 

Wade swore and leapt straight up in a jump that Nathan forgot he could make, clearing the bulk of Nathan's impromptu "bullets". He backflipped and landed on clearer ground, sword a blur of steel as he swatted the last few items out of the air, sending them flying back at Nathan in an unexpected hail of return fire. Nathan slapped everything to the ground with a thought, smashing not just the deflected items out of the air, but also the whirling dust and paper that had been kicked up by his will. 

"Deflection is the third form," Wade reminded him from his left, having crossed the distance so swiftly it seemed as if he had teleported, using the distraction to make his move. 

Caught off guard, Nathan reacted on reflex instead of with measured intent. He flung Wade through the air with a thought, just to get him _away_. The blowback was immediate and brutal, Wade's reactive defenses shattering Nathan's mental shields with all the delicacy of a sledgehammer through a car window. For an overwhelming second, the entire city screamed through Nathan. He staggered backwards with a groan as he grabbed for shielding, spinning them desperately from nothing. 

Hope's head rolls across the floor, a grisly trophy that Stryfe had thrown at Nathan's feet. Stryfe's laughter was terrible for the surprise that was frozen on her innocent face.

Wade twisted in the air like a cat, rebounding off the side of the AC unit he had been thrown into and bolting across the divide to cut Nathan down in his brief moment of weakness. 

The throne room is vast, either a sop to Stryfe's pride or a tactical defense from attack. They close the distance between them and Stryfe even when they know they will be too late to stop him. He snaps Hope's neck with a laugh.

Nathan psychic weakness was a magnet, drawing the flickering ghosts of fragmented time to him, a lodestone from which to draw strength to make themselves real once more. He pushed them aside with difficulty, juggling reconstructing his shields with his focus on the moment, on the point that Wade was always making for him.

"You always leave yourself open!" Nathan snapped, thrusting the sword through Wade's stomach, a blow that would have killed any other man.

"That's not an opening," Wade snarled, breath gasping as he was penetrated by twenty-six inches of steel. His sword sliced through the opening Nathan had made in his own defense and shattered against the telekinetic shielding around Nathan's neck. Steel shards flew through the air, scattering across the roof and Wade thrust the broken point into his shielded throat, "That's a trap."

The spear punches through Wade's gut, catching for just a moment before the cutting beam ignites and slices him in half as Stryfe rips it upward. Behind him, Hope screams before the blade turns on her next.

"Hope's dead," Nathan whispers, transfixed as blood floods from the wound that he just opened up in Wade's stomach. Blood and gases and the stench of opened guts. Temporal fragments float around him like ghosts. How many times had Wade stepped in front of a blade meant for him or Hope? How many times now has he watched as one or both of them are torn apart in a moment just like this?

Hope turns when Nathan calls her, telling her to stop and wait for him, that it's too dangerous to run ahead. The blade cuts right to left. As she turns, her body still working even though she's already dead, she falls apart.

"What?" Wade's grip on his broken sword falters. He carelessly drops it and reaches down to yank the sword that has punched through his abdomen out of both himself and Nathan's hands. It drops to the ground and he kicks both of them aside.

"Hope's dead, Wade," Nathan repeats, empty hands spreading helplessly, "I lost."

There's a drop. A moat that rings Stryfe's throne room, filled with spikes, just so he can have the joy of doing what he does now as he pushes a little girl off the edge into the long fall below.

"No, she isn't," Wade says slowly, "Just go back and get her. Do it again. You have all the time in the world."

"I did," Nathan shakes his head, looking up at Wade and trying to remember how he ended up on his knees, "I did. No matter how many times I go, no matter what I try, she always dies."

The shambling relic can barely be called Wade. It's bones held together by pure will. It can no longer speak. There are two lights where eyes used to be, the only animus beyond its ability to move. Rendering it to atoms is all the mercy Nathan can think to give it and he's afraid even that won't kill it, that all he'll do is trap Wade's spirit in dust. 

... and it still throws itself in front of Hope, shattering across the blade that parts her head from her neck.

Nathan flings his arms around flesh and blood Wade, pressing his face to his bloody stomach, to feel blood pumping through his veins and air panting through his chest and his guts gurgling in outrage at their perforation, to feel heat and life and warmth to push away the chill of temporal memory that brings him waking _nightmares_ of Wades that live too long and a Hope that dies and dies and dies.

"Nate," Wade responds to his desperation, half folding over his head to hug his shoulders, petting his hair, "C'mon, you'll fix it."

"It's _fixed_," Nathan just shakes his head and holds on tighter, because he has tried. He has tried and tried and tried and time feels thin now, stretched past bearing like a worn rubber band where if he tries one more time it'll snap and it will have all been for nothing. Hope's future is faded, a picture held up to the sun for too long, a record played too many times that the color has been lost and the sound has gone muted and scratchy with age.

Nathan picks a fight with Wade because that's how they are, how they talk when they struggle to find the right words ... but instead of throwing it back, giving as good as he got, Wade hunches his shoulders and turns away, going silent until someone else passes through his line of vision and words spill from him anew, frantic and bright.

Could you miss someone when they stand right beside you? Nathan feels like he's met a thousand Wades in a thousand terrible futures, watched Hope die again and again and again, and even though they all try, he and Wade both, they fail. It's not Wade's fault that he's catching up every time they arrive ... it's Nathan's fault for leaving him behind ... and now Wade is leaving him behind. 

"Don't go," he begs, long past caring what he sounds like, "Don't leave me."

They've dodged a dozen attacks and Neena brings X-Force, chasing him across dimensions. Her luck has been their salvation, the split second's difference that makes Nathan hope that this time they'll get Hope through it. 

The contamination in their rations drops them all except Neena, Wade, and Nate. There is no cure for a poison that melts organs. They all die and Hope chokes to death on her own blood, clutching Nathan's hand as the light leaves her eyes.

"Why can't you all just _go away_," Wade snarls, his voice made of blades that mercilessly shred Nathan's visions. His talons are red and sharp and his feathers block out the sky. Nathan's shields are tatters that the whole world screams through, clutching and dragging and calling and begging, and he clings to Wade because he is _real_ and not a terrible memory, weeping because the whole city is weeping, crying, grieving, hurting.

... or maybe ... 

... that's ... 

... just ... 

... him ...

Nathan comes back to himself in increments. His knees hurt. The cement is cold. He's propped against something warm and solid and breathing. Fingers card steadily through his hair, making him shiver. The shiver jolts him. His everything is raw, scoured by poor shielding and poor emotional control, that bled him and the city together into one discordant note. 

The silence that wraps around his mind is a balm, smooth as silk, soft as downy fur, smelling of lavender and soothing darkness. A palm presses to his cheek, the ripples of scars familiar. Nathan leans into the touch, focusing on the ripples, an unevenness that is grounding. He could trace every distortion on Wade's skin and have to start all over again when he was done, a meditation that Wade could probably never sit through. 

_Maybe I should ask_, drifts through his mind light as a dandelion as he rubs his cheek against the ridges.

"Ask me what?" The weight across his shoulders shifts and a lovely, rasping tenor breaks through the white noise of traffic.

"To hold still while I count you," Nathan mumbles against warmth, tightening his grip on it.

"Yeah, okay," the nice voice agreed, "you're still out of it. Have you been sleeping at all? Because usually _I'm_ the one who has the psychotic breaks around here. You can't just go stealing my jobs, Nate. I have to keep my uniqueness or they'll replace me with someone else. Comics are a shark eat shark world." 

"Mmmm," Nathan hums as the words flow over him in a wash of pleasant sound, "That's my name."

"This is kinda adorable." His hair ruffles. "Why don't I ever have any _cameras_ when you're being adorable? That last time you were this cute you were a fluffy beanpole and I was strapped to a bed to keep me from doing something rash like, I dunno, _kill you_. Man, I completely missed the whole part between two and twelve, didn't I? Curse my useless swiss cheese brain."

The more the nice voice talks, the more settled the world becomes. He's raw, but he's been raw before. It's not the first time Nathan overstretched himself. Like a hangover, it gets easier to bear the more times it happens. He sore, but he's been sore before, from long stake outs and rocky places. The world steadily resolves itself as Nathan regains his focus. 

He's on his knees on the roof, leaning against Wade, who's the warm solid pillar that's holding him up and stroking his hair, rambling on about nothing at all. Nathan's shields are down, but he's as deep in Wade's null field as he can get without being inside his skin with him, and the soft wrapping feeling is Wade's mind coiling around his own, blanketing him in Wade's own passive defenses. Even at Xavier's, he could not be better or more painlessly shielded than he is now.

"Thank you," he whispers against Wade's shoulder, grateful that Wade is here, protecting him from the world and the world from him.

"You're welcome?" Wade hums back, interrupting his own flowing chatter, "Feel better now?"

"Yes. No. Maybe." Nathan says honestly, "I feel tired and sore and ... "

"Then let's go to bed."

Nathan closes his eyes again because he is tired beyond tired, "Okay."

"I mean in an _actual_ bed. Aw, c'mon, Nate, wake up!"

* * *

Wade slides from Nate's grip like he's made of smoke, glad that the big lug is finally sleeping. Watching him shatter into broken pieces made Wade feel like he was the one being broken. Now he knows the weight that has crushed Nate and it tries to crush him in turn, squeezing his heart in a vice. 

_Leaning over her small fragile body, watching her breath tiny unsteady little breaths, Wade didn't dare touch something so soft and clean when he was covered in viscera and steaming blood. He glances up at Nate, watching him out of the corner of his eyes, and knows that Nate is already gone just from the light in his eyes, fierce and broken and lost. _

_This baby is the mission now._

Nate ... Nate has lost too much. He has buried his time, his home, his wife, and all his children. All he has left is the mission and what cold meaning it gives his life. If he lost one mission, then he'd find a new one to replace it. Save the future, fail to make any progress whatsoever. Build Providence, destroy Providence. Kidnap a little girl, lose a little girl. _Their little girl!_ Annoy Spidey to death because Wade was his shield brother ... it was all just a mission, a purpose to give his life meaning. 

Except even if Nate thought he only had the mission ... he still had Wade and Wade would never let Nate walk alone when he could walk right beside him and insult him for the rest of his life for being such a self sacrificing moron. 

Answers won't find themselves, though, so he collects his favorite gun and heads to the roof.

Wade knows that Nate can't see him. That to Nate, his mind is functionally impassable and that makes it interesting and frustrating in turns, a puzzle that Nate is constantly trying to solve, but will never solve. Wade's not so sure why just being close to him makes Nate relax, why the tension eases away and the little frown lines fade. It just does. So Wade walks over to the part of the roof that is above his bedroom and circles until he finds the part that feels the most like Nate and sits down. The silencer fits oddly under his chin, making his grip more awkward than he's used to, but he doesn't want Nate to hear this and wake up and find him missing. He'd pick something quieter, but all the quieter things are just _too slow_ to put him under far enough and fast enough to see his Lady.

Pulling the trigger is easy and sweet and a _relief_.

Wade opens his eyes and the other world resolves like puzzle pieces locking into place. The other world is cold and quiet and peaceful. It settles across his spirit like a blanket and he longs for this place, for the sleep from which he will never wake, for _rest_.

Nate had never been here, not even when he was dead. It had taken Wade a painfully long time to realize that meant he wasn't dead at all, just separated from him by the whims of space and time and writers.

His mind is clear, freed from mortal cares, unshackled from a body that is nothing but a stone holding him down. He's been released from pain, from madness, from hallucinations and voices and _knowing too much_. Here all his thoughts are sharp and cold, precise and clean, linear and logical. The chaotic whirl is far away, stripped from him along with his skin.

Only Death knows him as he really is, the core of his true self. When he's alive, he can barely remember what it feels like to be whole.

She arrives like the sun, the only cold light in a dark world. Her dress is purple shadows and moonlight, her bones glow in the darkness like a lamp. Frankincense and myrrh fills the airless void. 

He kneels before her without hesitation, grasping the bones of her hand and pressing them to his bowed forehead in silent supplication. Her finger bones card through his hair, the memory of it made real for her convenience. "Ask, beloved."

"Is Hope here?"

"She sleeps within these halls."

If she was in the arms of Death, then it was _finished_, it was _done_. Here she was at peace, freed from pain and terror and hardship. They would never have to worry about her suffering where they could not reach her, tortured by their enemies across the veil of time. They could grieve. Wade presses a fervent kiss to her finger bones. "Thank you." 

"You do not long for her life?"

"Of course I do," Wade agreed easily, holding her hand tightly to his cheek, "but she's safe here with you, sleeping peacefully until Nate can join her."

"Beloved, come and stay."

"You know I always try that," Wade lunged forward, pressing a kiss to her teeth, "and it never works." 

Life reached for him, leaching pain into his soul, clouding his mind and vision.

"Try harder," she said tartly as he faded from her grasp like smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sword forms used in this chapter are based on the ones in Star Wars lore. First form is Shii-Cho (the fencing form). The third form is Soresu (the defense/deflection form). More saber forms can be seen [here](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combat/Legends).
> 
> Life decided to crush me these last few weeks. Then I suffered another crisis about poor deleted Chapter 9 since 9 and 11 were kinda tied together and that really hit me in editing this, but eventually I cut out all the talking so _we can just get on with it already_.


	11. Without Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Wade confront each other.

There was something about this night that made it hard to breathe, like his heart had broken for no reason. Peter couldn't name the feeling, only that it permeated the air, making him anxious and uneasy. He crisscrossed Queens until the feeling finally faded, his spider sense zinging with a constant prickle until it just _stopped_. The abrupt absence of oppressive heartache made him realize it was either some sort of accidental power brought suddenly back under control or a weapon that another hero had probably destroyed. Finally able to relax, Peter completed his patrol and went to seek some much needed downtime.

The anxiety immediately returned as he approached Deadpool's apartment. For Wade, there were only three settings: full darkness, full illumination, or the blue glow of the TV. Tonight, the apartment was dark, but through the window was a soft warm light, that only flickered now and again: candlelight. Wade didn't do candles. Peter dimly recalled a long involved rant about candles, draculas, and burning to death.

Peter landed on the fire escape and hesitated. Did he want to know what had brought on the sudden surge of candles? For certain? He grimly squared his shoulders. Even if he caught them in the act, it was better to know. He opened the always unlocked window and slipped inside.

It was dark and still except for the single candle that burned on the small kitchen table. Wade, who was sitting there quietly watching it burn, only glanced up when Peter entered, before his attention returned to the flame. There was no welcome. There was only silence.

Peter's unease grew as the silence stretched. He glanced at the front door and noted the great coat that hung on the gunrack. So Nathan was here. Somewhere.

Peter cautiously approached the kitchen, trying to keep his walk and voice casual as he asked, "Where's your friend?"

"Asleep," Wade said, so calm and so brief it was like he was a different person, a person that Peter barely recognized, "Finally."

... and here was Wade, fully dressed, sitting silently in the dark, staring at a candle. Peter's skin wanted to crawl even though his spider sense was silent. There was no second kitchen chair. There never had been. For the first time, he realized that nothing in this apartment had changed since they had started sleeping together. He leaned against the wall, folding his arms. "What are you doing?"

"Lighting a candle for the dead," Wade replied quietly.

"Who died?" Peter kept his voice just as low. 

"Hope," Wade shifted, looping his arms around the candle, as if to protect it.

Scott has mentioned Hope. That Nathan had been traveling with Hope. Though why that should matter to Wade, who had never mentioned her to Peter even once ... but then again, Peter hadn't even known about _Nathan_. Or Siryn or Taskmaster or Hammer or Bob or Orksa. 

Had he ever really been a part of Wade's life at all? Or had he just been warming his bed?

"Who's Hope?"

Wade looked up and Peter couldn't read him. There was something sharp in him that Peter had never seen before, some cold clarity that made him seem like a stranger. "My daughter."

Whatever Peter had expected, this wasn't it. His whole perspective shifted, twisting around this one life changing fact. _My daughter._ A daughter that had been traveling with _Nathan_. The weight of it was a stone. "How long have you two been together?" he whispered. 

Wade blinked and shook his head, "We aren't together," he sounded surprised.

"You have a daughter!" Peter snapped, his voice raising nearly to a shout.

"Keep your voice down," Wade said mildly, but he seemed to finally realize why Peter was upset because his tone became rueful, "She's not our blood, but Nate stole her and I helped him, so that makes her ours."

"Oh my god," Whenever Peter thought he had a grasp of the situation, it twisted around him again. Peter could not believe this shit. Kidnapping. Time travel. Dead children. "You can't just _kidnap children_!"

"Why not? The X-Men do it all the time."

Peter pressed his hands to his head and clutched his hair through his mask, "Scott was right."

"Right about what?" 

"You'll always pick Nathan," Peter sighed, disgusted with them and upset with himself for ... for all of this, he supposed. For falling in with Wade when he probably should have known better than to get involved with Deadpool. Wade had been his little secret because Peter had enjoyed the thrill of secrecy and because he hadn't wanted to hear his friends tell him it was a bad idea to date an assassin ... but Peter was realizing that they would have been right to warn him off if this was the sort of thing Wade was involved in.

Wade's head tilted and he shrugged, "Why shouldn't I? He's always picked me."

"_I_ picked you," Peter grit out, "despite my better judgment."

"Despite _your_ better judgment?" Wade's strange impassivity, the otherness that jangled on Peter's nerves, faded away as anger sparked to life. "Why sleep with me at all then? You don't even trust me!"

"I trusted you!" Peter shot back, upset at the accusation despite all the secrets that remained between them. "You know why I -- "

"It's not about that." Wade slashed a hand abruptly through the air in negation, "I don't care who you are! I don't want to know!"

Peter paused, surprised and unexpectedly stung by Wade's disinterest. Why _wouldn't_ Wade want to know his secret identity? He found himself with nothing to say. Should he demand that Wade should _want_ to know?

Thankfully, Wade didn't need a conversational partner to keep talking, "I mean, c'mon, Spidey. That's too much responsibility. What if I just blurted it out one day because I forgot it was supposed to be a secret? You can't trust my chopped liver brain with something important like that."

That was so _reasonable_ that Peter shuffled a little awkwardly with relief, "Oh."

"That's not the problem," Wade folded his arms over his chest and nodded decisively, "The problem is that you could never bring yourself to eat with me. Not even once!"

Peter winced behind his mask, "H-hey ... we had tacos and pizza plenty of times."

"That's wrapped food that you watched me buy. Drinks that came out of closed bottles or sealed baggies," Wade glared at him, "The whole time we've been together and you have never once accepted something that _I_ made."

The hurt and accusation that bled through those words surprised Peter. It never occurred to him that rejecting all those offers of food Peter could never be sure was safe to eat ... that Wade had perceived it as lack of trust. This was never even a discussion that he had been prepared to have. He had been ready to fight for his secret identity, not his eating habits.

"Well, everything at your place is filthy, so I thought that ... " Peter trailed off weakly.

"I'm not a fucking idiot," Wade said bitterly, "Even if my memory is shit it's not hard too remember that everyone else is more fragile than me, but you couldn't even trust me not to give you food poisoning. What were you gonna do, huh, for the rest of your life? Were you going to do all the cooking? Eat take-out? Get a cook and a maid? I mean, it's not like I can't afford it, right?" 

"Hey!" Peter said sharply, because that was simply unfair, "I didn't think about _marriage_, okay? I was just thinking about us in the _now_."

"Of course you weren't ... no one keeps their dirty little secrets around forever."

"You weren't thinking of forever either," Peter shot back tartly.

Wade smiled, but the smile had not a drop of kindness, it was just a sharp slice of meanness, a baring of teeth rather than smile. "Did you think I was so _stupid_ as to fall in love with someone who only has one use for me and despises everything else that I am?"

Peter bit his lip. That was harsh. He didn't just have one use for Wade, he _had_ cared about him even if Wade had never managed to care about him in return. "Nathan only has a _use_ for you, too."

"Nate has a use for everyone," Wade said, not seeming to be bothered anymore now as ever by what Nathan did, "but at least he's not _ashamed_ of it or me ... and he _trusts_ me."

... and for Wade, that was all it seemed to come down to: Trust.

Peter and Wade didn't have any, not any real level of trust. If Wade had been offering it, holding out his hand all this time, then Peter had never seen it. Peter certainly hadn't been offering any trust of his own, not really. He had only be offering the use of his body. All it came down to was them using each other to keep warm. 

"So that's it, huh?" Peter said bitterly, "So long and thanks for all the fish."

"Yeah," Wade nodded, "Thanks for the good time, Spidey. Try not to die out there."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now officially the longest fic I've posted in the Deadpool fandom. I never thought it would get so big when I started!
> 
> This was the original end of this version. Only slightly adjusted thanks to everyone's thoughts about secret identities. I couldn't let that sit without at least a small answer as to why it didn't bother Wade. <3
> 
> If there's still some folks sticking around who are interested, there will be an omake follow-up with the deleted chapter, unfinished and rejected chapters, and some scraps that got edited out along the way.


End file.
